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DISSERTATIONS 


DISCUSSIONS: 

lolitital,  ^^ilosop|JaI,  anb  ^istorital. 

BY 

JOHN    STUART    MILL. 

IN  THREE  VOLUMES. 
VOL.  I. 


BOSTON : 
WILLIAM    V.    SPENCER, 

134,  Washington  Street. 
1865. 


boston: 

stereotyped  akd  printed  bt  john  wxl80k  and  son, 

Ko.  5,  Water  Street. 


UNIVERSITY  OP  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA  COLLEGE  LIBEARY 


IGO3 


ADVERTISEMENT 

TO 

THE    AMERICAN    EDITION. 


Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill  is  so  well  known  in  this 
country,  that  any  thing  here  by  way  of  introducing 
him,  or  of  setting  forth  his  merits  as  a  writer,  is  un- 
necessary. The  devotion  and  ability  which  he  has 
brought  to  the  support  of  liberal  principles,  and  the 
spirit,  at  once  elevated  and  practical,  which  character- 
izes whatever  has  proceeded  from  his  pen,  have  made 
him  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  progressive  thinkers 
and  workers  of  England ;  and  the  republication  in 
Ameri(vi  of  his  "  System  of  Logic,"  "  Principles  of  Po- 
litical Economy,"  "  Considerations  on  Representative 
Government,"  and  an  Essay  "  On  Liberty,"  is  abundant 
evidence  of  the  interest  his  writings  have  excited  in 
the  United  States. 

The  publisher  of  the  present  volumes  has  great 
pleasure  in  now  offering  to  American  readers  a  reprint 
of  Mr.  Mill's  own  collection  of  his  miscellaneous  pro- 
ductions.    Although   the  papers   of  which   it    consists 

[iii] 


"^^S^: 


IV        ADVERTISEMENT  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION. 

originally  appeared  in  Reviews  and  Magazines,  they  are 
not  dependent  for  their  interest  on  the  time  of  their  first 
appearance.  The  manner  in  which  the  writer  handles 
his  subject,  and  the  nature  of  the  subject  itself,  are  such 
as  to  give  to  each  of  these  essays  both  an  immediate  and 
a  permanent  interest.  They  contain  a  synopsis  of  his 
opinions  on  the  highest  subjects  of  human  thought ;  and 
the  catholic  spirit  and  intellectual  fidelity,  with  which 
the  lofty  themes  and  great  names  that  pass  in  review 
are  examined,  cannot  fail  to  recommend  them  to  every 
competent  reader. 

This  collection  of  "Dissertations  and  Discussions" 
was  printed  in  London  in  1859,  making  two  octavo 
volumes.  Their  entire  contents  are  here  reprinted  in 
three,  of  a  smaller  size.  To  the  first  volume,  more- 
over, has  been  prefixed  a  paper  from  "Fraser's  Magazine" 
for  February,  1862,  entitled  "The  Contest  in  America," 
and  to  the  third  volume  has  been  added  another 
paper  from  "Fraser's  Magazine"  for  December,  1859, 
entitled  "  A  Few  Words  on  Non-intervention,"  as  well 
as  an  article  from  the  "  Westminster  Review  "  for  Octo- 
ber, 1862,  on  "The  Slave  Power,"  and  a  tract,  more 
recently  published,  on  "Utilitarianism;"  —  the  whole 
being  thus  issued  here  with  the  express  sanction  and 
approval  of  the  Author. 

BosTOX,  September,  1864. 


PREFACE. 


The  republication,  in  a  more  durable  form,  of  papers 
originally  contributed  to  periodicals,  has  grown  into  so 
common  a  practice,  as  scarcely  to  need  an  apology;  and 
I  follow  this  practice  the  more  willingly,  as  I  hold  it 
to  be  decidedly  a  beneficial  one.  It  would  be  well  if 
all  frequent  writers  in  periodicals  looked  forward,  as 
far  as  the  case  admitted,  to  this  re-appearance  of  their 
productions.  The  prospect  might  be  some  guaranty 
against  the  crudity  in  the  formation  of  opinions,  and 
carelessness  in  their  expression,  which  are  the  besetting 
sins  of  writings  put  forth  under  the  screen  of  anony- 
mousness,  to  be  read  only  during  the  next  few  weeks 
or  months,  if  so  long,  and  the  defects  of  which  it  is 
seldom  probable  that  any  one  will  think  it  worth  while 
to  expose. 

The  following  papers,  selected  from  a  much  greater 
number,  include  all  of  the  writer's  miscellaneous  pro- 
ductions which  he  considers  it  in  any  way  desirable  to 
preserve.  The  remainder  were  either  of  too  little  value 
at  any  time,  or  what  value  they  might  have  was  too 

[V] 


VI  PREFACE. 

exclusively  temporary,  or  the  thoughts  they  contained 
were  inextricably  mixed  up  with  comments,  now  totally 
uninteresting,  on  passing  events,  or  on  some  book  not 
generally  known ;  or,  lastly,  any  utility  they  may  have 
possessed  has  since  been  superseded  by  other  and  more 
mature  writings  of  the  author. 

Every  one  whose  mind  is  progressive,  or  even  whose 
opinions  keep  up  with  the  changing  facts  that  surround 
him,  must  necessarily,  in  looking  back  to  his  own  writ- 
ings during  a  series  of  years,  find  many  things,  which, 
if  they  were  to  be  written  again,  he  would  write  differ- 
ently, and  some,  even,  which  he  has  altogether  ceased 
to  think  true.  From  these  last  I  have  endeavored  to 
clear  the  present  pages.  Beyond  this,  I  have  not  at- 
tempted to  render  papers  written  at  so  many  different, 
and  some  of  them  at  such  distant  times,  a  faithful 
representation  of  my  present  state  of  opinion  and  feel- 
ing. I  leave  them  in  all  their  imperfection,  as  memo- 
rials of  the  states  of  mind  in  which  they  were  written, 
in  the  hope  that  they  may  possibly  be  useful  to  such 
readers  as  are  in  a  corresponding  stage  of  their  own 
mental  progress.  Where  what  I  had  written  appears 
a  fair  statement  of  part  of  the  truth,  but  defective  in- 
asmuch as  there  exists  another  part  respecting  which 
nothing,  or  too  little,  is  said,  I  leave  the  deficiency  to 
be  supplied  by  the  reader's  o^vn  thoughts ;  the  rather, 
as  he  will,  in  many  cases,  find  the  balance  restored  in 


PREFACE.  VU 

some  other  part  of  this  collection.  Thus  the  review 
of  Mr.  Sedgwick's  Discourse,  taken  by  itself,  might 
give  an  impression  of  more  complete  adhesion  to  the 
philosophy  of  Locke,  Bentham,  and  the  eighteenth 
century,  than  is  really  the  case,  and  of  an  inadequate 
sense  of  its  deficiencies  ;  but  that  notion  will  be  rectified 
by  the  subsequent  essays  on  Bentham  and  on  Coleridge. 
These,  again,  if  they  stood  alone,  would  give  just  as 
much  too  strong  an  impression  of  the  writer's  sympathy 
with  the  re-action  of  the  niheteenth  century  against  the 
eighteenth ;  but  this  exaggeration  will  be  corrected  by 
the  more  recent  defence  of  the  "greatest-happiness" 
ethics  against  Dr.  Whewell. 

Only  a  small  number  of  these  papers  are  controver- 
sial, and  in  but  two  am  I  aware  of  any  thing  like 
asperity  of  tone.  In  both  these  cases,  some  degree  of 
it  was  justifiable,  as  I  was  defending  maligned  doctrines 
or  individuals  against  unmerited  onslaughts  by  persons, 
who,  on  the  evidence  afibrded  by  themselves,  were  in 
no  respect  entitled  to  sit  in  judgment  on  them ;  and  the 
same  misrepresentations  have  been  and  still  are  so  in- 
cessantly reiterated  by  a  crowd  of  writers,  that  emphatic 
protests  against  them  are  as  needful  now  as  when  the 
papers  in  question  were  first  written.  My  adversaries, 
too,  were  men  not  themselves  remarkable  for  mild 
treatment  of  opponents,  and  quite  capable  of  holding 
their  own  in. any  form  of  reviewing  or  pamphleteering 


VUl  PREFACE. 

polemics.  I  believe  that  I  have  in  no  case  fought  witli 
other  than  fair  weapons ;  and  any  strong  expressions 
which  I  have  used  were  extorted  from  me  by  my  sub- 
ject, not  prompted  by  the  smallest  feeling  of  personal 
ill-will  towards  my  antagonists.  In  the  revision,  I 
have  endeavored  to  retain  only  as  much  of  this  strength 
of  expression  as  could  not  be  foregone  without  weak- 
ening the  force  of  the  protest. 


CONTENTS    OF  VOL.   I. 


PAGE 

THE    CONTEST   IN   AMERICA 1 

THE    RIGHT  AND   WRONG    OF    STATE    INTEEFEBBNCE 'WITH    COR- 
PORATION  AND    CHURCH   PROPERTY 28 

THE    CURRENCY   JUGGLE 68 

A    FEW    OBSERVATIONS    ON    THE    FRENCH    REVOLUTION   ....  82 

THOUGHTS    ON    POETRY    AND    ITS   VARIETIES 89 

PROFESSOR  Sedgwick's  discourse  on  the  studies  of  the 

university  of  cambridge 121 

civilization 186 

aphorisms  :  a  fragment 232 

armand  carrel 237 

a  prophecy 309 

WRITINGS    OF   ALFRED   DE   VIGNY 812 

BENTHAM 855 

APPENDIX 418 


[ix] 


DISSERTATIONS, 

ETC. 


THE   CONTEST  IN  AMERICA* 


The  cloud  which,  for  the  space  of  a  month,  hung 
gloomily  over  the  civilized  world,  black  with  far  worse 
evils  than  those  of  simple  war,  has  passed  from  over 
our  heads  without  bursting.  The  fear  has  not  been 
realized,  that  the  only  two  first-rate  powers,  who  are 
also  free  nations,  would  take  to  tearing  each  other  in 
pieces,  both  the  one  and  the  other  in  a  bad  and  odious 
cause.  For  while,  on  the  American  side,  the  war 
would  have  been  one  of  reckless  persistency  in  wrong, 
on  ours  it  would  have  been  a  war  in  alliance  with,  and, 
to  practical  purposes,  in  defence  and  propagation  of, 
slavery.  We  had,  indeed,  been  wronged.  We  had 
suffered  an  indignity,  and  something  more  than  an 
indignity,  which,  not  to  have  resented,  would  have  been 
to  invite  a  constant  succession  of  insults  and  injuries 
from  the  same  and  from  every  other  quarter.  We 
could  have  acted  no  otherwise  than  we  have  done ;  yet 
it  is   impossible   to   think,   without   something  like  a 

*  Fraser's  Magazine,  February,  1862. 


2  THE   CONTEST   IN   AilERICA. 

shudder,  from  what  we  have  escaped.  AVe,  the  eman- 
cipators of  the  slave,  who  have  wearied  every  court 
and  government  in  Europe  and  America  with  our  pro- 
tests and  remonstrances,  until  we  goaded  them  into  at 
least  ostensibly  co-operating  with  us  to  prevent  the 
enslaving  of  the  negro ;  we,  who  for  the  last  half- 
century  have  spent  annual  sums,  equal  to  the  revenue 
of  a  small  kingdom,  in  blockading  the  African  coast  for 
a  cause  in  which  we  not  only  had  no  interest,  but  which 
was  contrary  to  our  pecuniary  interest,  and  which  many 
believed  would  ruin,  as  many  among  us  still,  though 
erroneously,  believe  that  it  has  ruined,  our  colonies,  — 
we  should  have  lent  a  hand  to  setting  up,  in  one  of  the 
most  commanding  positions  of  the  world,  a  powerful 
republic,  devoted  not  only  to  slavery,  but  to  pro- 
slavery,  propagandism ;  should  have  helped  to  give  a 
place  in  the  community  of  nations  to  a  conspiracy  of 
slave-owners,  who  have  broken  their  connection  with  the 
American  federation,  on  the  sole  ground,  ostentatiously 
proclaimed,  that  they  thought  an  attempt  would  be 
made  to  restrain,  not  slavery  itself,  but  their  purpose  of 
spreading  slavery  wherever  migration  or  force  could 
carry  it. 

A  nation  which  has  made  the  professions  that  Eng- 
land has,  does  not  with  impunity,  under  however  great 
provocation,  betake  itself  to  frustrating  the  objects  for 
which  it  has  been  calling  on  the  rest  of  the  world  to 
make  sacrifices  of  what  they  think  their  interest.  At 
present,  all  the  nations  of  Europe  have  sympathized 
with  us  ;  have  acknowledged  that  we  were  injured ;  and 
declared,  with  rare  unanimity,  that  we  had  no  choice 
but  to  resist,  if  necessary,  by  arms.     But  the  conse- 


THE   CONTEST   EST  A3IERICA.  3 

quences  of  such  a  war  would  soon  have  buried  its 
causes  in  oblivion.  When  the  new  Confederate  States, 
made  an  independent  power  by  English  help,  had  begun 
their  crusade  to  carry  negro  slavery  from  the  Potomac 
to  Cape  Horn,  who  would  then  have  remembered  that 
England  raised  up  this  scourge  to  humanity,  not  for  the 
evil's  sake,  but  because  somebody  had  offered  an  insult 
to  her  flag?  Or,  even  if  unforgotten,  who  would  then 
have  felt  that  such  a  grievance  was  a  sufficient  pallia- 
tion of  the  crime?  Every  reader  of  a  newspaper,  to 
the  farthest  ends  of  the  earth,  would  have  believed  and 
remembered  one  thing  only,  —  that  at  the  critical  junc- 
ture which  was  to  decide  whether  slavery  should  blaze 
up  afresh  with  increased  vigor,  or  be  trodden  out ;  at 
the  moment  of  conflict  between  the  good  and  the  evil 
spirit ;  at  the  dawn  of  a  hope,  that  the  demon  might 
now  at  last  be  chained,  and  flung  into  the  pit,  —  Eng- 
land stepped  in,  and,  for  the  sake  of  cotton,  made  Satan 
victorious. 

The  world  has  been  saved  from  this  calamity,  and 
England  from  this  disgrace.  The  accusation  would, 
indeed,  have  been  a  calumny.  But,  to  be  able  to  defy 
calumny,  a  nation,  like  an  individual,  must  stand  very 
clear  of  just  reproach  in  its  previous  conduct.  Unfor- 
tunately, we  ourselves  have  given  too  much  plausibility 
to  the  charge ;  not  by  any  thing  said  or  done  by  us 
as  a  government  or  as  a  nation,  but  by  the  tone  of  our 
press,  and  in  some  degree,  it  must  be  owned,  the  gen- 
eral opinion  of  English  society.  It  is  too  true,  that 
the  feelings  which  have  been  manifested  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  American  contest ;  the  judgments  which 
have  been  put  forth,  and  the  wishes  which  have  been 


4  THE    CONTEST   EST   AMEEICA. 

expressed,  concerning  the  incidents  and  probable  event- 
ualities of  the  struggle ;  the  bitter  and  irritating  criti- 
cism which  has  been  kept  up,  not  even  against  both 
parties  equally,  but  almost  solely  against  the  party  in 
the  right ;  and  the  ungenerous  refusal  of  all  those  just 
allowances,  which  no  country  needs  more  than  our  own, 
whenever  its  circumstances  are  as  near  to  those  of 
America  as  a  cut  finger  is  to  an  almost  mortal  wound, — 
these  facts,  with  minds  not  favorably  disposed  to  us, 
would  have  gone  far  to  make  the  most  odious  interpre- 
tation of  the  war,  in  which  we  have  been  so  nearly 
engaged  with  the  United  States,  appear,  by  many 
degrees,  the  piost  probable.  There  is  no  denying  that 
our  attitude  towards  the  contending  parties  (I  mean  our 
moral  attitude  ;  for,  politically,  there  was  no  other  course 
open  to  us  than  neutrality)  has  not  been  that  which 
becomes  a  people  who  are  as  sincere  enemies  of  slavery 
as  the  English  really  are,  and  have  made  as  great  sacri- 
fices to  put  an  end  to  it  where  they  could.  And  it  has 
been  an  additional  misfortune,  that  some  of  our  most 
powerful  journals  have  been,  for  many  years  past,  very 
unfavorable  exponents  of  English  feeling  on  all  subjects 
connected  with  slavery ;  some,  probably,  from  the  in- 
fluences, more  or  less  direct,  of  West-Indian  opinions 
and  interests ;  others  from  inbred  Toryism,  which, 
even  when  compelled  by  reason  to  hold  opinions  favora- 
ble to  liberty,  is  always  adverse  to  it  in  feeling ;  which 
likes  the  spectacle  of  irresponsible  power,  exercised  by 
one  person  over  others ;  which  has  no  moral  repug- 
nance to  the  thought  of  human  beings  bom  to  the  penal 
servitude  for  life,  to  which,  for  the  term  of  a  few  years, 
we  sentence  our  most  hardened  criminals,  but  keeps  its 


THE    CONTEST   IN  AMERICA.  D 

indignation  to  be  expended  on  "rabid  and  fanatical 
abolitionists  "  across  the  Atlantic,  and  on  those  writers 
in  England  who  attach  a  sufficiently  serious  meaning 
to  their  Christian  professions  to  consider  a  fight  against 
slavery  as  a  fight  for  God. 

Now,  when  the  mind  of  England,  and,  it  may  almost 
be  said,  of  the  civilized  part  of  mankind,  has  been 
relieved  from  the  incubus  which  had  weighed  on  it  ever 
since  the  "  Trent "  outrage,  and  when  we  are  no  longer 
feeling  towards  the  Northern  Americans  as  men  feel 
towards  those  with  whom  they  may  be  on  the  point  of 
struggling  for  life  or  death,  — now,  if  ever,  is  the  time 
to  review  our  position,  and  consider  whether  we  have 
been  feeling  what  ought  to  have  been  felt,  and  wishing 
what  ought  to  have  been  wished,  regarding  the  contest 
in  which  the  Northern  States  are  engaged  with  the 
South. 

In  considering  this  matter,  we  ought  to  dismiss  from 
our  minds,  as  far  as  possible,  those  feelings  against 
the  North  which  have  been  engendered  not  merely  by 
the  "Trent"  aggression,  but  by  the  previous  anti-Brit- 
ish effusions  of  newspaper-writers  and  stump-orators. 
It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  ask  how  far  these  explosions 
of  ill-humor  are  any  thing  more  than  might  have  been 
anticipated  from  ill-disciplined  minds,  disappointed  of 
the  sympathy  which  they  justly  thought  they  had  a 
right  to  expect  from  the  great  antislavery  people  in 
their  really  noble  enterprise.  It  is  almost  superfluous 
to  remark,  that  a  democratic  government  always  shows 
worst  where  other  governments  generally  show  best,  — 
on  its  outside ;  that  unreasonable  people  are  much  more 
noisy  than  the  reasonable  ;  that  the  froth  and  scum  are 


6  THE    CONTEST   IN   AMERICA. 

the  part  of  a  violently  fermenting  liquid  that  meets  the 
eyea,  but  are  not  its  body  and  substance.  Without 
insisting  on  these  things,  I  contend  that  all  previous 
cause  of  offence  should  be  considered  as  cancelled  by 
the  reparation  which  the  American  Government  has  so 
amply  made ;  not  so  much  the  reparation  itself,  which 
might  have  been  so  made  as  to  leave  still  greater  cause 
of  permanent  resentment  behind  it,  but  the  manner  and 
spirit  in  which  they  have  made  it.  These  have  been 
such  as  most  of  us,  I  venture  to  say,  did  not  by  any 
means  expect.  If  reparation  were  made  at  all,  of 
which  few  of  us  felt  more  than  a  hope,  we  thought  that 
it  would  have  been  made  obviously  as  a  concession  to 
prudence,  not  to  principle.  We  thought  that  there 
would  have  been  truckling  to  the  newspaper  editors  and 
supposed  fire-eaters  who  were  crying  out  for  retaining 
the  prisoners  at  all  hazards.  We  expected  that  the 
atonement,  if  atonement  there  were,  would  have  been 
made  with  reservations,  perhaps  under  protest.  We 
expected  that  the  correspondence  would  have  been  spun 
out,  and  a  trial  made  to  induce  England  to  be  satisfied 
with  less ;  or  that  there  would  have  been  a  proposal  of 
arbitration  ;  or  that  England  would  have  been  asked  to 
make  concessions  in  return  for  justice  ;  or  that,  if  sub- 
mission was  made,  it  would  have  been  made,  ostensi- 
bly, to  the  opinions  and  wishes  of  Continental  Europe. 
We  expected  any  thing,  in  short,  which  would  have 
been  weak  and  timid  and  paltry.  The  only  thing 
which  no  one  seemed  to  expect  is  what  has  actually 
happened.  Mr.  Lincoln's  government  have  done  none 
of  these  things.  Like  honest  men,  they  have  said,  in 
direct  terms,  that  our  demand  was  right;    that  they 


THE    CONTEST   IX   A3IERICA.  7 

yielded  to  it  because  it  was  just ;  that,  if  they  them- 
selves had  received  the  same  treatment,  they  would 
have  demanded  the  same  reparation ;  and  that.  If  what 
seemed  to  be  the  American  side  of  a  question  was  not 
the  just  side,  they  would  be  on  the  side  of  justice ; 
happy  as  they  were  to  find,  after  their  resolution  had 
been  taken,  that  it  was  also  the  side  which  America 
had  formerly  defended.  Is  there  any  one,  capable  of  a 
moral  judgment  or  feeling,  who  will  say  that  his  opin- 
ion of  America  and  American  statesmen  is  not  raised 
by  such  an  act,  done  on  such  grounds  ?  The  act  itself 
may  have  been  imposed  by  the  necessity  of  the  circum- 
stances ;  but  the  reasons  given,  the  principles  of  action 
professed,  were  their  own  choice.  Putting  the  worst 
hypothesis  possible,  which  it  would  be  the  height  of 
injustice  to  entertain  seriously,  that  the  concession  was 
really  rhade  solely  to  convenience,  and  that  the  profes- 
sion of  regard  for  justice  was  hypocrisy,  even  so,  the 
ground  taken,  even  if  insincerely,  is  the  most  hopeful 
sioTi  of  the  moral  state  of  the  American  mind  which  has 
appeared  for  many  years.  That  a  sense  of  justice 
should  be  the  motive  which  the  rulers  of  a  country  rely 
on  to  reconcile  the  public  to  an  unpopular,  and  what 
might  seem  a  humiliating  act;  that  the  journalists, 
the  orators,  many  lawyers,  the  lower  house  of  Con- 
gress, and  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  naval  secretary,  should 
be  told  In  the  face  of  the  world,  by  their  own  gov- 
ernment, that  they  have  been  giving  public  thanks, 
presents  of  swords,  freedom  of  cities,  all  manner  of 
heroic  honors,  to  the  author  of  an  act,  which,  though 
not  so  intended,  was  lawless  and  wrong,  and  for  which 
the  proper  remedy  is  confession  and  atonement,  — that 


8  THE   CONTEST   IN   AMERICA. 

this  should  be  the  accepted  policy  (supposing  it  to  be 
nothing  higher)  of  a  democratic  republic,  shows  even 
unlimited  democracy  to  be  a  better  thing  than  many 
Englishmen  have  lately  been  in  the  habit  of  considering 
it,  and  goes  some  way  towards  proving  that  the  aberra- 
tions even  of  a  ruling  multitude  are  only  fatal  when  the 
better  instructed  have  not  the  virtue  or  the  courage  to 
front  them  boldly.  Nor  ought  it  to  be  forgotten,  to 
the  honor  of  Air.  Lincoln's  government,  that,  in  doing 
what  was  in  itself  right,  they  have  done  also  what  was 
best  fitted  to  allay  the  animosity  which  was  daily  becom- 
ins:  more  bitter  between  the  two  nations  so  lonor  as  the 
question  remained  open.  They  have  put  the  brand  of 
confessed  injustice  upon  that  rankling  and  vindictive 
resentment  with  which  the  profligate  and  passionate 
part  of  the  American  press  has  been  threatening  us  in 
the  event  of  concession,  and  which  is  to  be  manifested 
by  some  dire  revenge,  to  be  taken,  as  they  pretend, 
after  the  nation  is  extricated  from  its  present  difficulties. 
!Mr.  Lincoln  has  done  what  depended  on  him  to  make 
this  spirit  expire  with  the  occasion  which  raised  it  up ; 
and  we  shall  have  ourselves  chiefly  to  blame  if  we  keep 
it  alive  by  the  further  prolongation  of  that  stream  of 
vituperative  eloquence,  the  source  of  which,  even  now, 
when  the  cause  of  .quarrel  has  been  amicably  made  up, 
does  not  seem  to  have  run  dry.* 

Let  us,  then,  without  reference  to  these  jars,  or  to 

•  I  do  not  forget  one  regrettable  passage  in  Mr.  Seward's  letter,  in  which 
he  said,  that,  "  if  the  safetj-  of  the  Union  required  the  detention  of  the  cap- 
tured persons,  it  would  be  the  right  and  duty  of  this  government  to  detain 
them."  I  sincerely  grieve  to  find  this  sentence  in  the  despatch;  for  the 
exceptions  to  the  general  rules  of  morality  are  not  a  subject  to  be  lightly  or 
unnecessarily  tampered  with     The  doctrine  in  itself  is  no  other  than  that 


THE   CONTEST   IN   AMERICA.  9 

the  declamations  of  newspaper  writers  on  either  side  of 
the  Atlantic,  examine  the  American  question  as  it 
stood  from  the  beginning, — its  origin,  the  purpose  of 
both  the  combatants,  and  its  various  possible  or  proba- 
ble issues. 

There  is  a  theory  in  England,  believed  perhaps  by 
some,  half  believed  by  many  more,  which  is  only  con- 
sistent with  original  ignorance,  or  complete  subsequent 
forgetfulness,  of  all  the  antecedents  of  the  contest. 
There  are  people  who  tell  us,  that,  on  the  side  of  the 
North,  the  question  is  not  one  of  slavery  at  all.  The 
North,  it  seems,  have  no  more  objection  to  slavery  than 
the  South  have.  Their  leaders  never  say  one  word 
implying  disapprobation  of  it.  They  are  ready,  on  the 
contrary,  to  give  it  new  guaranties ;  to  renounce  all 
that  they  have  been  contending  for ;  to  win  back,  if 
opportunity  offers,  the  South  to  the  Union,  by  surren- 
dering the  whole  point. 

If  this  be  thp  true  state  of  the  case,  what  are  the 
Southern  chiefs  fighting  about?  Their  apologists  in 
England  say  that  it  is  about  tariffs  and  similar  trum- 
pery. They  say  nothing  of  the  kind.  They  tell  the 
world,  and  they  told  their  own  citizens  when  they 
wanted  their  votes,  that  the  object  of  the  fight  was 
slavery.  Many  years  ago,  when  Gen.  Jackson  was 
president.  South  Carolina  did  nearly  rebel  (she  never 
was  near  separating)  about  a  tariff;  but  no  other  State 

professed  and  acted  on  by  all  governments,  —  that  self-preservation,  in  a 
State  as  in  an  individual,  is  a  warrant  for  many  things,  which,  at  all  other 
times,  ought  to  be  rigidly  abstained  from.  At  all  events,  no  nation,  which 
has  ever  passed  "  laws  of  exception,"  which  ever  suspended  the  Habeas- 
Corpus  Act,  or  passed  an  Alien  Bill  in  dread  of  a  Chartist  insurrection,  has 
a  riffht  to  throw  the  first  stone  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  Government. 


10  THE   COXTEST   IN   AMERICA. 

abetted  her,  and  a  strong  adverse  demonstration  from 
Virginia  brought  the  matter  to  a  close.  Yet  the  tariff 
of  that  day  was  rigidly  protective.  Compared  with 
that,  the  one  in  force  at  the  time  of  the  secession  was 
a  free-trade  tariff.  This  latter  was  the  result  of  several 
successive  modifications  in  the  direction  of  freedom ; 
and  its  principle  was  not  protection  for  protection,  but 
as  much  of  it  only  as  might  incidentally  result  from 
duties  imposed  for  revenue.  Even  the  MoitlU  Tariff 
(which  never  could  have  been  passed  but  for  the  South- 
em  secession)  is  stated,  by  the  high  authority  of  Mr. 
H.  C.  Carey,  to  be  considerably  more  liberal  than  the 
reformed  French  tariff  under  Mr.  Cobden's  treaty ; 
insomuch  that  he,  a  protectionist,  would  be  glad  to 
exchange  his  own  protective  tariff  for  Louis  Napoleon's 
free-trade  one.  But  why  discuss,  on  probable  evidence, 
notorious  facts?  The  world  knows  what  the  question 
between  the  North  and  South  has  been  for  many  years, 
and  still  is.  Slavery  alone  was  thought  of,  alone  talked 
of.  Slavery  was  battled  for  and  against  on  the  floor  of 
Congress  and  in  the  plains  of  Kansas.  On  the  sla- 
very question  exclusively  was  the"  party  constituted 
which  now  rules  the  United  States ;  on  slavery,  Fre- 
mont was  rejected  ;  on  slavery,  Lincoln  was  elected  ;  the 
South  separated  qn  slavery,  and  proclaimed  slavery  as 
the  one  cause  of  separation. 

It  is  true  enough  that  the  North  are  not  carrying  on 
war  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  legally 
exists.  Could  it  have  been  expected,  or  even  perhaps 
desired,  that  they  should?  A  great  party  does  not 
change  suddenly,  and  at  once,  all  its  principles  and 
professions.      The  Republican  party  have  taken  their 


THE    CONTEST    ES"   AMERICA.  H 

stand  on  law,  and  the  existing  Constitution  of  the  Union. 
They  have  disclaimed  all  right  to  attempt  any  thing 
which  that  Constitution  forbids.  It  does  forbid  inter- 
ference, by  the  Federal  Congress,  with  slavery  in  the 
Slave  States ;  but  it  does  not  forbid  their  abolishing  it 
in  the  District  of  Columbia  :  and  this  they  are  now  do- 
ing ;  having  voted,  I  perceive,  in  their  present  pecuniary 
straits,  a  million  of  dollars  to  indemnify  the  slave-own- 
ers of  the  District.  Neither  did  the  Constitution,  in 
their  own  opinion,  require  them  to  permit  the  introduc- 
tion 'of  slavery  into  the  Territories  which  were  not  yet 
States.  To  prevent  this,  the  Republican  party  was 
formed ;  and,  to  prevent  it,  they  are  now  fighting,  as 
the  slave-owners  are  fiojhtino^  to  enforce  it. 

The  present  government  of  the  United  States  is  not 
an  Abolitionist  government.  Abolitionists,  in  Amer- 
ica, mean  those  who  do  not  keep  within  the  Constitu- 
tion ;  who  demand  the  destruction  (as  far  as  slavery  is 
concerned)  of  as  much  of  it  as  protects  the  internal 
legislation  of  each  State  from  the  control  of  Congress ; 
who  aim  at  abolishing  slavery  wherever  it  exists,  by 
force,  if  need  be,  but  certainly  by  some  other  power 
than  the  constituted  authorities  of  the  Slave  States. 
The  Republican  party  neither  aim,  nor  profess  to  aim, 
at  this  object ;  and  when  we  consider  the  flood  of  wrath 
which  would  have  been  poured  out  against  them,  if  they 
did,  by  the  very  writers  who  now  taunt  them  with  not 
doing  it,  we  shall  be  apt  to  think  the  taunt  a  little  mis- 
placed. But,  though  not  an  Abolitionist  party,  they 
are  a  Free-soil  party.  If  they  have  not  taken  arms 
hgainst  slavery,  they  have  against  its  extension ;  and 
they  know,  as  we  may  know,  if  we  please,  that  this 


12  THE    CONTEST   IN    AMERICA. 

amounts  to  the  same  thing.  The  day  when  slavery  can 
no  longer  extend  itself  is  the  day  of  its  doom.  The 
slave-owners  know  this ;  and  it  is  the  cause  of  their 
fury.  They  know,  as  all  know  who  have  attended  to 
the  subject,  that  confinement  within  existing  limits  is  its 
death-warrant.  Slavery,  under  the  conditions  in  which 
it  exists  in  the  States,  exhausts  even  the  beneficent 
powers  of  nature.  So  incompatible  is  it  with  any  kind 
whatever  of  skilled  labor,  that  it  causes  the  whole  pro- 
ductive resources  of  the  country  to  be  concentrated  on 
one  or  two  products,  —  cotton  being  the  chief,  —  which 
require,  to  raise  and  prepare  them  for  the  market,  little 
besides  brute  animal  force.  The  cotton  cultivation,  in 
the  opinion  of  aU  competent  judges,  alone  saves  North- 
American  slavery ;  but  cotton  cultivation,  exclusively 
adhered  to,  exhausts,  in  a  moderate  number  of  years, 
all  the  soils  which  are  fit  for  it,  and  can  only  be  kept 
up  by  travelling  farther  and  farther  westward.  Mr. 
Olmsted  has  given  a  vivid  description  of  the  desolate 
state  of  parts  of  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas,  once 
among  the  richest  specimens  of  soil  and  cultivation  in 
the  world ;  and  even  the  more  recently  colonized  Ala- 
bama, as  he  shows,  is  rapidly  following  in  the  same 
downhill  track.  To  slavery,  therefore,  it  is  a  matter 
of  life  and  death  to  find  fresh  fields  for  the  employment 
of  slave  labor.  Confine  it  to  the  present  States,  and 
the  owners  of  slave  property  will  either  be  speedily 
ruined,  or  will  have  to  find  means  of  reformino;  and 
renovating  their  agricultural  system ;  which  cannot  be 
done  without  treating  the  slaves  like  human  beings,  nor 
without  so  large  an  employment  of  skilled,  that  is,  of 
free  labor,  as  will  widely  displace  the  unskilled,  and 


THE    CONTEST    IN   AMERICA.  13 

SO  depreciate  the  pecuniary  value  of  the  slave,  that  the 
immediate  mitigation  and  ultimate  extinction  of  slavery 
would  be  a  nearly  inevitable,  and  probably  rapid,  con- 
sequence. 

The  Republican  leaders  do  not  talk  to  the  public  of 
these  almost  certain  results  of  success  in  the  present 
conflict.  They  talk  but  little,  in  the  existing  emer- 
gency, even  of  the  original  cause  of  quarrel.  The 
most  ordinary  policy  teaches  them  to  inscribe  on  their 
banner  that  part  only  of  their  known  principles  in  which 
their  supporters  are  unanimous.  The  preservation  of 
the  Union  is  an  object  about  which  the  North  are 
agreed  ;  and  it  has  many  adherents,  as  they  believe,  in 
the  South  generally.  That  nearly  half  the  population 
of  the  Border  Slave  States  are  in  favor  of  it,  is  a  pa- 
tent fact,  since  they  are  now  fighting  in  its  defence.  It 
is  not  probable  that  they  would  be  willing  to  fight 
directly  against  slavery.  The  Republicans  well  know, 
that,  if  they  can  re-establish  the  Union,  they  gain  every 
thing  for  which  they  originally  contended  ;  and  it  would 
be  a  plain  breach  of  faith  with  the  Southern  friends  of 
the  government,  if,  after  rallying  them  round  its  stand- 
ard for  a  purpose  of  which  they  approve,  it  were  sud- 
denly to  alter  its  terms  of  communion  without  their 
consent. 

But  the  parties  in  a  protracted  civil  war  almost  in- 
variably end  by  taking  more  extreme,  not  to  say  higher, 
grounds  of  principle  than  they  began  with.  Middle 
parties,  and  friends  of  compromise,  are  soon  left  behind  ; 
and  if  the  writers  who  so  severely  criticise  the  present 
moderation  of  the  Free-soilers  are  desirous  to  see  the 
war  become  an  abolition  war,  it  is  probable,  that,  if 


14  THE    CONTEST    IN    AMERICA. 

the  war  lasts  long  enough,  they  will  b.e  gratified. 
Without  the  smallest  pretension  to  see  further  into 
futurity  tlian  other  people,  I,  at  least,  have  foreseen 
and  foretold  from  the  first,  that,  if  the  South  were  not 
promptly  put  down,  the  contest  would  become  distinctly 
an  antislavery  one ;  nor  do  I  believe  that  any  person 
accustomed  to  reflect  on  the  course  of  human  affairs  in 
troubled  times  can  expect  any  thing  else.  Those  who 
have  read,  even  cursorily,  the  most  valuable  testimony 
to  which  the  English  public  have  access,  concerning  the 
real  state  of  affairs  in  America,  —  the  letters  of  the 
"Times"  correspondent,  Mr.  Russell,  —  must  have  ob- 
served how  early  and  rapidly  he  arrived  at  the  same 
conclusion,  and  with  what  increasing  emphasis  he  now 
continually  reiterates  it.  In  one  of  his  recent  letters, 
he  names  the  end  of  next  summer  as  the  period  by 
which,  if  the  war  has  not  sooner  terminated,  it  will 
have  assumed  a  complete  antislavery  character.  So 
early  a  term  exceeds,  I  confess,  my  most  sanguine 
hopes  :  but,  if  Mr.  Russell  be  right.  Heaven  forbid  that 
the  war  should  cease  sooner ;  for,  if  it  lasts  till  then,  it 
is  quite  possible  that  it  will  regenerate  the  American 
people. 

If,  however,  the  purposes  of  the  North  may  be 
doubted  or  misunderstood,  there  is  at  least  no  question 
as  to  those  of  the  South.  They  make  no  concealment 
of  their  principles.  As  long  as  they  were  allowed  to 
direct  all  the  policy  of  the  Union ;  to  break  through 
compromise  after  compromise  ;  encroach,  step  after  step, 
until  they  reached  the  pitch  of  claiming  a  right  to  carry 
slave  property  into  the  Free  States,  and,  in  opposition 
to  the  laws  of  those  States,  hold  it  as  property  there,  — 


THE    CONTEST   IN  AMERICA.  15 

SO  long  they  were  willing  to  remain  in  the  Union.  The 
moment  a  president  was  elected,  —  of  whom  it  was  in- 
ferred, from  his  opinions,  not  that  he  would  take  any 
measm*es  against  slavery  where  it  exists,  but  that  he 
would  oppose  its  establishment  where  it  exists  not,  — 
that  moment  they  broke  loose  from  what  was,  at  least, 
a  very  solemn  contract,  and  formed  themselves  into  a 
confederation,  professing,  as  its  fundamental  principle, 
not  merely  the  perpetuation,  but  the  indefinite  exten- 
sion, of  slavery ;  and  the  doctrine  is  loudly  preached 
through  the  new  Republic,  that  slavery,  whether  black 
or  white,  is  a  good  in  itself,  and  the  proper  condition  of 
the  working  classes  everywhere. 

Let  me,  in  a  few  words,  remind  the  reader  what  sort 
of  a  thing  this  is  which  the  white  oligarchy  of  the 
South  have  banded  themselves  together  to  propagate 
and  establish,  if  they  could,  universally.  When  it  is 
wished  to  describe  any  portion  of  the  human  race  as  in 
the  lowest  state  of  debasement,  and  under  the  most 
cruel  oppression,  in  which  it  is  possible  for  human 
beings  to  live,  they  are  compared  to  slaves.  When 
words  are  sought  by  which  to  stigmatize  the  most  odi- 
ous despotism,  exercised  in  the  most  odious  manner,  and 
all  other  comparisons  are  found  inadequate,  the  despots 
are  said  to  be  like  slave -masters  or  slave-drivers. 
What,  by  a  rhetorical  license,  the  worst  oppressors  of 
the  human  race,  by  way  of  stamping  on  them  the  most 
hateful  character  possible,  are  said  to  be,  these  men,  in 
very  truth,  are.  I  do  not  mean  that  all  of  them  are 
hateful  personally,  any  more  than  all  the  inquisitors  or 
all  the  buccaneers.  But  the  position  Avhich  they  occupy, 
and  the  abstract  excellence  of  which  they  are  in  arms  to 


16  THE    CONTEST   IN   AMERICA. 

vindicate,  is  that  which  the  united  voice  of  mankind 
habitually  selects  as  the  type  of  all  hateful  qualities.  I 
will  not  bandy  chicanery  about  the  more  or  less  of 
stripes  or  other  torments  which  are  daily  requisite  to 
keep  the  machine  in  working  order,  nor  discuss  whether 
the  Legrees  or  the  St.  Clairs  are  more  numerous  among 
the  slave-owners  of  the  Southern  States.  The  broad 
facts  of  the  case  suffice.  One  fact  is  enough.  There 
are,  Heaven  knows,  vicious  and  tyrannical  institutions  in 
ample  abundance  on  the  earth.  But  this  institution  is 
the  only  one  of  them  all  which  requires,  to  keep  it 
going,  that  human  beings  should  be  burnt  alive.  The 
calm  and  dispassionate  Mr.  Olmsted  affirms,  that  there 
has  not  been  a  single  year,  for  many  years  past,  in 
which  this  horror  is  not  known  to  have  been  perpetrated 
in  some  part  or  other  of  the  South.  And  not  upon 
negroes  only:  the  "Edinburgh  Review,"  in  a  recent 
number,  gave  the  hideous  details  of  the  burning  alive 
of  an  unfortunate  Northern  huckster  by  Lynch-law,  on 
mere  suspicion  of  having  aided  in  the  escape  of  a  slave. 
What  must  American  slavery  be,  if  deeds  like  these  are 
necessary  under  it?  and  if  they  are  not  necessary,  and 
are  yet  done,  is  not  the  evidence  against  slavery  still 
more  damning?  The  South  are  in  rebellion  not  for 
simple  slavery :  they  are  in  rebellion  for  the  right  of 
burning  human  creatures  alive. 

But  we  are  told,  by  a  strange  misapplication  of  a 
true  principle,  that  the  South  had  a  right  to  separate ; 
that  their  separation  ought  to  have  been  consented  to 
the  moment  they  showed  themselves  ready  to  fight  for 
it ;  and  that  the  North,  in  resisting  it,  are  committing 
the  same  error  and  wrong  which  England  committed  in 


THE   CONTEST  EST   AMERICA.  17 

opposing  the  original  separation  of  the  thirteen  Colonies. 
This  is  carrying  the  doctrine  of  the  sacred  right  of 
insurrection  rather  far.  It  is  wonderful  how  easy  and 
liberal  and  complying  people  can  be  in  other  people's 
concerns.  Because  they  are  willing  to  surrender  their 
own  past,  and  have  no  objection  to  join  in  reprobation 
of  their  great-grandfathers,  they  never  put  themselves 
the  question,  what  they  themselves  would  do  in  circum- 
stances far  less  trying,  under  far  less  pressure  of  real 
national  calamity.  Would  those  who  profess  these 
ardent  revolutionary  principles  consent  to  their  being 
applied  to  Ireland  or  India  or  the  Ionian  Islands? 
How  have  they  treated  those  who  did  attempt  so  to 
apply  them  ?  But  the  case  can  dispense  with  any  mere 
argumentum  ad  hominem.  I  am  not  frightened  at 
the  word  "rebellion."  I  do  not  scruple  to  say  that  I 
have  sympathized  more  or  less  ardently  with  most  of  the 
rebellions,  successful  and  unsuccessful,  which  have  taken 
place  in  my  time.  But  I  certainly  never  conceived  that 
there  was  a  sufficient  title  to  my  sympathy  in  the  mere 
fact  of  being  a  rebel ;  that  the  act  of  taking  arms 
against  one's  feUow-citizens  was  so  meritorious  in  itself, 
was  so  completely  its  own  justification,  that  no  question 
need  be  asked  concerning  the  motive.  It  seems  to  me 
a  strange  doctrine,  that  the  most  serious  and  responsible 
of  all  human  acts  imposes  no  obligation  on  those  who 
do  it  of  showing  that  they  have  a  real  grievance  ;  that 
those  who  rebel  for  the  power  of  oppressing  others  ex- 
ercise as  sacred  a  right  as  those  who  do  the  same  thing 
to  resist  oppression  practised  upon  themselves.  Neither 
rebellion,  nor  any  other  act  which  aflPects  the  interests  of 
Others,  is  sufficiently  legitimated  by  the  mere  will  to  do 


18  THE   CONTEST   IN   AMERICA. 

it.  Secession  may  be  laudable,  and  so  may  any  other 
kind  of  insun-ection ;  but  it  may  also  be  an  enormous 
crime.  It  is  the  one  or  the  other,  according  to  the  ob- 
ject and  the  provocation.  And  if  there  ever  vv^as  an 
object,  w^hich,  by  its  bare  announcement,  stamped  rebels 
against  a  particular  community  as  enemies  of  mankind, 
it  is  the  one  professed  by  the  South.  Their  right  to 
separate  is  the  right  M^hich  Cartouche  or  Turpin  vs^ould 
have  had  to  secede  from  their  respective  countries,  be- 
cause the  laws  of  those  countries  vv^ould  not  suifer  them 
to  rob  and  murder  on  the  highway.  The  only  real  dif- 
ference is,  that  the  present  rebels  are  more  powerful 
than  Cartouche  or  Turpin,  and  may  possibly  be  able  to 
effect  their  iniquitous  purpose. 

Suppose,  however,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the 
mere  will  to  separate  were  in  this  case,  or  in  any  case, 
a  sufficient  ground  for  separation,  I  beg  to  be  informed 
whose  will?  The  will  of  any  knot  of  men,  who,  by 
fair  means  or  foul,  by  usurpation,  terrorism,  or  fraud j 
have  got  the  reins  of  government  into  their  hands  ?  If 
the  inmates  of  Parkhurst  Prison  were  to  get  possession 
of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  occupy  its  military  positions,  en- 
list one  part  of  its  inhabitants  in  their  ovni  ranks,  set 
the  remainder  of  them  to  work  in  chain-gangs,  and 
declare  themselves  independent,  ought  their  recognition 
by  the  British  Government  to  be  an  immediate  cop- 
sequence  ?  Before  admitting  the  authority  of  any  per- 
sons, as  organs  of  the  will  of  the  people,  to  dispose  of 
the  whole  political  existence  of  a  country,  I  ask  to 
see  whether  their  credentials  are  from  the  whole,  or 
only  from  a  part.  And,  first,  it  is  necessary  to  ask, 
Have  the  slaves  been  consulted  ?     Has  their  will  been 


THE    CONTEST    IX   AMEEICA.  19 

counted  as  any  part  in  the  estimate  of  collective  vo- 
lition ?  They  are  a  part  of  the  population.  However 
natural  in  the  country  itself,  it  is  rather  cool  in  English 
writers  who  talk  so  glibly  of  the  ten  millions  (I  believe 
there  are  only  eight)  to  pass  over  the  very  existence  of 
four  millions  who  must  abhor  the  idea  of  separation. 
Remember,  we  consider  them  to  be  human  beings,  en- 
titled to  human  rights.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  the 
mere  fact  of  belonging  to  a  Union,  in  some  parts  of 
which  slavery  is  reprobated,  is  some  alleviation  of  their 
condition,  if  only  as  regards  future  probabilities.  But, 
even  of  the  white  population,  it  is  questionable  if  there 
was  in  the  beginning  a  majority  for  secession  anywhere 
but  in  South  Carolina.  Though  the  thing  was  pre- 
determined, and  most  of  the  States  committed  by  their 
public  authorities  before  the  people  were  called  on  to 
vote ;  though,  in  taking  the  votes,  terrorism  in  many 
places  reigned  triumphant,  — yet  even  so,  in  several  of 
the  States,  secession  was  carried  only  by  narrow  major- 
ities. In  some,  the  authorities  have  not  dared  to  pub- 
lish the  numbers ;  in  some,  it  is  asserted  that  no  vote 
has  ever  been  taken.  Further  (as  was  pointed  out  in 
an  admirable  letter  by  JVIr.  Carey) ,  the  Slave  States  are 
intersected  in  the  middle,  from  their  northern  frontier 
almost  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  by  a  country  of  free 
labor;  the  mountain  region  of  the  AUeghanies,  and 
their  dependencies,  forming  parts  of  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  Tennessee,  Georgia,  and  Alabama,  in  which, 
from  the  nature  of  the  climate  and  of  the  agricultural 
and  mining  industry,  slavery  to  any  material  extent 
never  did,  and  never  will,  exist.  This  mountain  zone 
is  peopled  by  ardent  friends  of  the  Union.     Could  the 


20  THE   CONTEST  IN   AMERICA. 

Union  abandon  them,  without  even  an  effort,  to  be 
dealt  with  at  the  pleasure  of  an  exasperated  slave-own- 
ing oligarchy?  Could  it  abandon  the  Germans,  who,  in 
Western  Texas,  have  made  so  meritorious  a  commence- 
ment of  growing  cotton  on  the  borders  of  the  Mexican 
Gulf  by  free  labor?  Were  the  right  of  the  slave-own- 
ers to  secede  ever  so  clear,  they  have  no  right  to  carry 
these  with  them,  unless  allegiance  is  a  mere  question 
of  local  proximity,  and  my  next  neighbor,  if  I  am  a 
stronger  man,  can  be  compelled  to  follow  me  in  any 
lawless  vagaries  I  choose  to  indulge. 

But  (it  is  said)  the  North  will  never  succeed  in  con- 
quering the  South ;  and,  since  the  separation  must  in 
the  end  be  recognized,  it  is  better  to  do  at  first  what 
must  be  done  at  last :  moreover,  if  it  did  conquer  them, 
it  could  not  govern  them,  when  conquered,  consistently 
with  free  institutions.  With  no  one  of  these  proposi- 
tions can  I  agree. 

Whether  or  not  the  Northern  Americans  will  succeed 
in  reconquering  the  South,  I  do  not  affect  to  foresee. 
That  they  can  conquer  it,  if  their  present  determination 
holds,  I  have  never  entertained  a  doubt ;  for  they  are 
twice  as  numerous,  and  ten  or  twelve  times  as  rich : 
not  by  taking  military  possession  of  their  country,  or 
marching  an  army  through  it,  but  by  wearing  them  out, 
exhausting  their  resources,  depriving  them  of  the  com- 
forts of  life,  encouraging  their  slaves  to  desert,  and 
excluding  them  from  communication  with  foreign  coun- 
tries. All  this,  of  course,  depends  on  the  supposition 
that  the  North  does  not  give  in  first.  Whether  they 
will  persevere  to  this  point,  or  whether  their  spirit,  their 
patience,  and  the  sacrifices  they  are  willing  to  make, 


THE   CONTEST   IN  AMERICA.  21 

will  be  exhausted  before  reaching   it,  I   cannot   tell. 
They  may,  in  the  end,  be  wearied  into  recognizing  the 
separation.     But  to  those  who  say,  that,  because  this 
may  have  to  be  done  at  last,  it  ought  to  have  been  done 
at   first,    I    put   the  very   serious    question.   On  M-^hat 
terms  ?     Have  they  ever  considered  what  would  have 
been  the  meaning  of  separation  if  it  had  been  assent- 
ed to  by  the  Northern   States  when  first  demanded? 
People  talk  as  if  separation  meant  nothing  more  than 
the   independence   of  the   seceding   States.     To   have 
accepted  it  under  that  limitation,  would  have  been,  on 
the  part  of  the  South,  to  give  up  that  which  they  have 
seceded  expressly  to  preserve.     Separation,  with  them, 
means  at  least  half  the  Territories,  including  the  JNIexi- 
can  border,  and  the  consequent  power  of  invading  and 
overrunning  Spanish  America  for  the  purpose  of  plant- 
ing there  the  "  peculiar  institution  "  which  even  Mexican 
civilization  has  found  too  bad  to  be  endured.     There  is 
no  knowing  to  what  point  of  degradation  a  country 
may  be  driven  in  a  desperate  state  of  its  affairs  :  but  if 
the  North  ever,  unless  on  the  brink  of  actual  ruin,  makes 
peace  with  the  South,  giving  up  the  original  cause  of 
quarrel,  the  freedom  of  the  Territories  ;  if  it  resigns  to 
them,  when  out  of  the  Union,  that  power  of  evil  which 
it  would  not  grant  to  retain  them  in  the  Union,  —  it 
will  incur  the  pity  and  disdain  of  posterity.     And  no 
one  can  suppose  that  the  South  would  have  consented, 
or  in  their  present  temper  ever  will    consent,  to    an 
accommodation  on  any  other  terms.     It  will  require  a 
succession  of  humiliation  to  bring  them  to  that.     The 
necessity  of  reconciling  themselves  to  the  confinement 
of   slavery  within   its    existing    boundaries,   with    the 


22  THE   CONTEST   IN   AMERICA. 

natural  consequence,  immediate  mitigation  of  slaverv 
and  ultimate  emancipation,  is  a  lesson  which  they  are  in 
no  mood  to  learn  from  any  thing  but  disaster.  Two  or 
three  defeats  in  the  field,  breaking  their  military  strength, 
though  not  followed  by  an  invasion  of  their  territory, 
may  possibly  teach  it  to  them.  If  so,  there  is  no* 
breach  of  charity  in  hoping  that  this  severe  schooling 
may  promptly  come.  When  men  set  themselves  up,  in 
defiance  of  the  rest  of  the  world,  to  do  the  Devil's  work, 
no  srood  can  come  of  them  until  the  world  has  made 
them  feel  that  this  work  cannot  be  suffered  to  be  done 
any  longer.  If  this  knowledge  does  not  come  to  them 
for  several  years,  the  abolition  question  will  by  that 
time  have  settled  itself.  For  assuredly  Congress  will 
very  soon  make  up  its  mind  to  declare  all  slaves  free 
who  belong  to  persons  in  arms  against  the  Union. 
When  that  is  done,  slavery,  confined  to  a  minority,  wUl 
soon  cm-e  itself ;  and  the  pecuniary  value  of  the  negroes 
belonging  to  loyal  masters  will  probably  not  exceed  the 
amount  of  compensation  which  the  United  States  will 
be  willing  and  able  to  give. 

The  assumed  difficulty  of  governing  the  Southern 
States  as  free  and  equal  commonwealths,  in  case  of  their 
return  to  the  Union,  is  purely  imaginary.  If  brought 
back  by  force,  and  not  by  voluntary  compact,  they  will 
return  without  the  Territories,  and  without  a  fusritive- 
slave  law.  It  may  be  assumed,  that,  in  that  event, 
the  victorious  party  would  make  the  alterations  in  the 
Federal  Constitution  which  are  necessary  to  adapt  it  to 
the  new  circumstances,  and  which  would  not  infringe, 
but  strengthen,  its  democratic  principles.  An  article 
would  have  to  be  inserted,  prohibiting  the  extension  of 


THE   CONTEST   IN  AMERICA.  23 

slavery  to  the  Territories,  or  the  admission  into  the 
Union  of  any  new  Slave  State.  Without  any  other 
guaranty,  the  rapid  formation  of  new  Free  States 
would  insure  to  freedom  a  decisive  and  constantly  in- 
creasing majority  in  Congress.  It  would  also  be  right 
to  abrogate  that  bad  provision  of  the  Constitution  (a 
necessary  compromise  at  the  time  of  its  first  establish- 
ment), whereby  the  slaves,  though  reckoned  as  citizens 
in  no  other  respect,  are  counted,  to  the  extent  of  three- 
fifths  of  their  number,  in  the  estimate  of  the  population 
for  fixing  the  number  of  representatives  of  each  State 
in  the  Lower  House  of  Congress.  Why  should  the 
masters  have  members  in  right  of  their  human  chattels, 
any  more  than  of  their  oxen  and  pigs  ?  The  President, 
in»his  message,  has  already  proposed  that  this  salutary 
reform  should  be  effected  in  the  case  of  Maryland ;  ad- 
ditional territory,  detached  from  Virginia,  being  given 
to  that  State  as  an  equivalent :  thus  clearly  indicating 
the  policy  which  he  approves,  and  which  he  is  probably 
willing  to  make  universal. 

As  it  is  necessary  to  be  prepared  for  all  possibilities, 
let  us  now  contemplate  another.  Let  us  suppose  the 
worst  possible  issue  of  this  war,  —  the  one  apparently 
desired  by  those  English  writers  whose  moral  feeling  is  so 
philosophically  indifferent  between  the  apostles  of  slavery 
and  its  enemies.  Suppose  that  the  North  should  stoop 
to  recognize  the  new  Confederation  on  its  own  terms, 
leaving  it  half  the  Territories  ;  and  that  it  is  acknowl- 
edged by  Europe,  and  takes  its  place  as  an  admitted 
member  of  the  community  of  nations.  It  will  be  de- 
sirable to  take  thought  beforehand  what  are  to  be  our 
own  future  relations  with  a  new  power,  professing  the 


24  THE   CONTEST  IN  AMERICA. 

principles  of  Attila  and  Genghis  Khan  as  the  founda- 
tion of  its  constitution.  Are  we  to  see  with  indiffer- 
ence its  victorious  army  let  loose  to  propagate  their 
national  faith  at  the  rifle's  mouth  through  Mexico  and 
Central  America?  Shall  we  submit  to  see  fire  and 
sword  carried  over  Cuba  and  Porto  Eico,  and  Hayti 
and  Liberia  conquered,  and  brought  back  to  slavery? 
We  shall  soon  have  causes  enough  of  quarrel  on  our 
own  account.  When  we  are  in  the  act  of  sending  an 
expedition  against  ]\Iexico  to  redress  the  wrongs  of  pri- 
vate British  subjects,  we  should  do  well  to  reflect  in 
time  that  the  President  of  the  new  Republic,  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson Davis,  was  the  original  inventor  of  repudiation. 
Mississippi  was  the  first  State  which  repudiated.  Mr. 
Jefferson  Davis  was  Governor  of  Mississippi ;  and  the 
Legislature  of  JSIississippi  had  passed  a  bill  recognizing 
and  {)roviding  for  the  debt,  which  bill  Mr.  Jefferson 
Davis  vetoed.  Unless  we  abandon  the  principles  we 
have  for  two  generations  consistently  professed  and 
acted  on,  we  should  be  at  war  with  the  new  Confederacy 
within  five  years  about  the  African  slave-trade.  An 
English  Government  will  hardly  be  base  enough  to 
recognize  them,  unless  they  accept  all  the  treaties  by 
which  America  is  at  present  bound ;  nor,  it  may  be 
hoped,  even  if  de  facto  independent,  would  they  be  ad- 
mitted to  the  courtesies  of  diplomatic  intercourse,  un- 
less they  granted  in  the  most  explicit  manner  the  right 
of  search.  To  allow  the  slave-ships  of  a  confederation 
formed  for  the  extension  of  slavery  to  come  and  go 
free  and  unexamined  between  America  and  the  Afri- 
can coast,  would  be  to  renounce  even  the  pretence  of 
attempting  to  protect  Africa  against  the  man-stealer, 


THE    CONTEST  IN  AMERICA.  25 

and  abandon  that  continent  to  the  horrors,  on  a  far 
larger  scale,  which  were  practised  before  Granville 
Sharp  and  Clarkson  were  in  existence.  But  even  if  the 
right  of  intercepting  their  slavers  were  acknowledged  by 
treaty,  which  it  never  would  be,  the  arrogance  of  the 
Southern  slave-holders  would  not  long  submit  to  its  ex- 
ercise. Their  pride  and  self-conceit,  swelled  to  an  inor- 
dinate height  by  their  successful  struggle,  would  defy 
the  power  of  England  as  they  had  already  successfully 
defied  that  of  their  Northern  countrymen.  After  our 
people  by  their  cold  disapprobation,  and  our  press  by  its 
invective,  had  combined  with  their  own  difficulties  to 
damp  the  spirit  of  the  Free  States,  and  drive  them  to 
submit  and  make  peace,  we  should  have  to  fight  the 
Slave  States  ourselves  at  far  greater  disadvantages,  when 
we  should  no  longer  have  the  wearied  and  exhausted 
North  for  an  ally.  The  time  might  come  when  the 
barbarous  and  barbarizing  power,  which  we  by  our 
moral  support  had  helped  into  existence,  would  require 
a  general  crusade  of  civilized  Europe  to  extinguish  the 
mischief  which  it  had  allowed,  and  we  had  aided,  to  rise 
up  in  the  midst  of  our  civilization. 

For  these  reasons,  I  cannot  join  with  those  who  cry, 
"  Peace,  peace  ! "  I  cannot  wish  that  this  war  should  not 
have  been  engaged  in  by  the  North ;  or  that,  being  en- 
gaged in,  it  should  be  terminated  on  any  conditions  but 
such  as  would  retain  the  whole  of  the  Territories  as  free 
soil.  I  am  not  blind  to  the  possibility,  that  it  may 
require  a  long  war  to  lower  the  arrogance  and  tame  the 
aggressive  ambition  of  the  slave-owners  to  the  point  of 
either  returning  to  the  Union,  or  consenting  to  remain 
out  of  it  with  their  present  limits.     But  war,  in  a  good 


26  THE    CONTEST   IN   AMERICA. 

cause,  is  not  the  greatest  evil  which  a  nation  can  suffer. 
War  is  an  ugly  thing,  but  not  the  ugliest  of  things : 
the  decayed  and  degraded  state  of  moral  and  patriotic 
feelinjr  which  thinks  nothinof  worth  a  war  is  worse. 
When  a  people  are  used  as  mere  human  instruments  for 
firing  cannon  or  thrusting  bayonets,  in  the  service  and 
for  the  selfish  purposes  of  a  master,  such  war  degrades 
a  people.  A  war  to  protect  other  human  beings  against 
tyrannical  injustice  ;  a  war  to  give  victory  to  their  own 
ideas  of  right  and  good,  and  which  is  their  own  war, 
carried  on  for  an  honest  purpose  by  their  free  choice,  — 
is  often  the  means  of  their  regeneration.  A  man  who 
has  nothing  which  he  is  willing  to  fight  for,  nothing 
which  he  cares  more  about  than  he  does  about  his  per- 
sonal safety,  is  a  miserable  creature,  who  has  no  chance 
of  being  free,  unless  made  and  kept  so  by  the  exertions 
of  better  men  than  himself.  As  long  as  justice  and 
injustice  have  not  terminated  their  ever-renewing  fight 
for  ascendency  in  the  affairs  of  mankind,  human  beings 
must  be  willing,  when  need  is,  to  do  battle  for  the  one 
against  the  other.  I  am  far  from  saying  that  the  pres- 
ent struggle  on  the  part  of  the  Northern  Americans  is 
wholly  of  this  exalted  character ;  that  it  has  arrived  at 
the  stage  of  being  altogether  a  war  for  justice,  a  war  of 
principle.  But  there  was  from  the  beginning,  and  now 
is,  a  large  infusion  of  that  element  in  it ;  and  this  is 
increasing,  will  increase,  and,  if  the  war  lasts,  will,  in 
the  end,  predominate.  Should  that  time  come,  not  only 
will  the  greatest  enormity  which  still  exists  among  man- 
kind as  an  institution  receive  far  earlier  its  coup  de 
grdce  than  there  has  ever,  until  now,  appeared  any 
probability  of;  but,  in  effecting  this,  the  Free  States  will 


THE   CONTEST   IN  AMERICA.  27 

have  raised  themselves  to  that  elevated  position,  in  the 
scale  of  morality  and  dignity,  which  is  derived  from 
great  sacrifices  consciously  made  in  a  \^rtuous  cause, 
and  the  sense  of  an  inestimable  benefit  to  all  future 
ages,  brought  about  by  their  own  voluntary  eflforts. 


28 


THE  RIGHT  AND  ^VRONG  OF  STATE  INTERFERENCE 
WITH  CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.* 


It  is  intended,  in  the  present  paper,  to  enter  some- 
what minutely  into  the  subject  of  foundations  and 
endowments,  and  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  Legis- 
lature in  respect  to  them :  with  the  design,  first,  of 
showing  that  there  is  no  moral  hinderance  or  bar  to 
the  interference  of  the  Legislature  with  endowments, 
though  it  should  even  extend  to  a  total  change  in  their 
purposes ;  and,  next,  of  inquiring,  in  what  spirit,  and 
with  what  reservations,  it  is  incumbent  on  a  virtuous 
Legislature  to  exercise  this  power.  As  questions  of 
political  ethics,  and  the  philosophy  of  legislation  in  the 
abstract,  these  inquiries  are  not  unworthy  of  the  con- 
sideration of  thinking  minds.  But  to  this  country, 
and  at  this  particular  time,  they  are  practical  ques- 
tions, not  solely  in  that  more  elevated  and  philosophical 
sense  in  which  all  questions  of  right  and  wrong  are 
emphatically  practical  questions,  but  as  being  the  pecu- 
liar topics  of  the  present  hour.  For  no  one  can  help 
seeing  that  one  of  the  most  pressing  of  the  duties 
which  parliamentary  reform  has  devolved  upon  our 
public  men  is  that  of  deciding  what  honestly  may,  and, 
supposing  this  determined,  what  should^  be  done  with 

*  Jurist,  February,  1833. 


CORPORATIOX  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.     2y 

the  property  of  the  Church  and  of  the  various  public 
corporations. 

It  is  a  twofold  problem,  —  a  question  of  expediency, 
and  a  question  of  morality  :  the  former  complex,  and 
depending  upon  temporary  circumstances ;  the  latter 
simple  and  unchangeable.  We  are  to  examine,  not 
merely  in  what  way  a  certain  portion  of  property  may 
be  most  usefully  employed, — that  is  a  subsequent  con- 
sideration ;  but  whether  it  can  be  touched  at  all  with- 
out spoliation ;  whether  the  diversion  of  the  estates  of 
foundations  from  the  present  hands,  and  from  the 
present  purposes,  would  be  disposing  of  what  is  justly 
our  own,  or  robbing  somebody  else  of  what  is  his : 
violating  property,  endangering  all  rights,  and  infrin- 
ging the  first  principles  of  the  social  union :  for  the 
enemies  of  the  interference  of  the  Legislature  assert  no 
less.  And,  if  this  were  so,  it  would  already  be  an  act 
of  immorality  even  to  discuss  the  other  question.  It  is 
not  a  fit  occupation  for  an  honest  man  to  cast  up  the 
probable  profits  of  an  act  of  plunder.  If  a  resumption 
of  endowments  belongs  to  a  class  of  acts,  which,  by 
universal  agreement,  ought  to  be  abstained  from,  what- 
ever may  be  their  consequences,  there  is  no  more  to  be 
said.  Whether  it  does  so  or  not,  is  the  question  now 
to  be  considered. 

If  the  inquiry  were  embarrassed  with  no  other  diiEfi- 
culties  than  are  inherent  in  its  own  nature,  it  would  not, 
we  think,  detain  us  long.  Unfortunately,  it  is  inextri- 
cably entangled  with  the  hopes  and  fears,  the  attach- 
ments and  antipathies,  of  temporary  politics.  All  men 
are  either  friendly  or  hostile  to  the  Church  of  England ; 
all  men  wish  either  well  or  ill  to  our  universities  and 


30     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

to  our  municipal  corporations.  But  we  know  not  why 
the  being  biassed  by  such  predilections  or  aversions 
should  be  more  pardonable  in  a  moralist  or  a  legislator 
than  it  would  be  in  a  judge.  If  the  dispute  were, 
whether  the  Duke  of  Wellington  should  be  called  upon 
to  account  for  £100,000,  it  would  be  a  perversion  of 
justice  to  moot  the  question  of  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton's public  services,  and  to  decide  the  cause  according 
as  the  judge  approves,  or  not,  of  the  war  with  Bona- 
parte, or  Catholic  emancipation.  The  true  question 
would  be,  whether  the  money  in  the  duke's  possession 
was  his  or  not.  We  have  our  opinion,  like  other  peo- 
ple, on  the  merits  or  demerits  of  the  clergy,  and  other 
holders  of  endowments.  We  shall  endeavor  to  forget 
that  we  have  any.  General  principles  of  justice  are 
not  to  be  shaped  to  suit  the  form  and  dimensions  of 
some  particular  case  in  which  the  judge  happens  to 
take  an  interest. 

By  a  foundation  or  endowment  is  to  be  understood 
money  or  money's  worth  (most  commonly  land), 
assigned,  in  perpetuity  or  for  some  long  period,  for  a 
public  purpose ;  meaning,  by  public,  a  purpose,  which, 
whatever  it  may  be,  is  not  the  personal  use  and  enjoy- 
ment of  an  assignable  individual  or  individuals. 

The  foundations  which  exist,  or  have  existed,  in 
this  or  other  coimtries,  are  exceedingly  multifarious. 
There  are  schools  and  hospitals  supported  by  assign- 
ments of  land  or  money ;  there  are  also  alms-houses, 
and  other  charitable  institutions  of  a  nature  more  or 
less  analogous.  The  estates  of  monasteries  belong  to 
the  class  of  endowments ;  so  do  those  of  our  univer- 
sities,   and    the    lands    and   tithes    of    all   established 


CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.     31 

churches.  The  estates  of  the  corporation  of  London, 
of  the  Fishmongers'  and  Mercers'  Companies,  &c.,  are 
also  public  foundations,  and  differ  from  the  foregoing 
only  in  being  local,  not  national.  All  these  masses  of 
property  originally  belonged  to  some  individual  or  indi- 
viduals, or  to  the  State ;  and  were,  either  by  the  right- 
ful owner  or  by  some  wrongful  possessor,  appropriated 
to  the  several  purposes  to  wliich  they  now,  really  or  in 
name,  continue  to  be  applied. 

It  may  seem  most  natural  to  begin  by  considering, 
whether  the  existence  of  endowments  is  desirable  at  all ; 
if  this  be  settled  in  the  affirmative,  to  inquire  on  what 
conditions  they  should  be  allowed  to  be  constituted ; 
and,  lastly,  how  the  Legislature  ought  to  deal  with  them 
after  they  are  formed.  But  the  problem,  what  is  to  be 
done  with  existing  endowments,  is  paramount  in  present 
importance  to  the  question  of  prospective  legislation. 
It  is  preferable,  therefore,  even  at  the  expense  of  an 
inversion  of  the  logical  order  of  our  propositions,  to 
consider,  first,  whether  it  is  allowable  for  the  State  to 
change  the  appropriation  of  endowments  ;  and,  after- 
wards, what  is  the  limit  at  which  its  interference  should 
stop. 

If  endowments  are  permitted,  it  is  implied,  as  a  neces- 
sary condition,  that  the  State,  for  a  time  at  least,  shall 
not  intermeddle  with  them.  The  property  assigned 
must  temporarily  be  sacred  to  the  purposes  to  wliich  it 
was  destined  by  its  owners.  The  founders  of  the  Lon- 
don University  would  not  have  subscribed  their  money, 
nor  would  Mr.  Drummond  have  established  the  Ox- 
ford Professorship  of  Political  Ecomomy,  if  they  had 
thought  that  they  were  merely  raising  a  sum  of  money 


32     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

to  be  placed  at  the  disposal  of  Parliament,  or  of  the 
ministry  for  the  time  being.  Subject  to  the  restrictions 
which  we  shall  hereafter  suggest,  the  control  of  the 
founder  over  the  disposition  of  the  property,  should,  in 
point  of  degree,  be  absolute.  But  to  what  extent 
should  it  reach  in  point  of  time  ?  For  how  long  should 
this  unlimited  power  of  the  founder  continue? 

To  this  question  the  answer  is  in  principle  so  obvious, 
that  it  is  not  easy  to  conceive  how  it  can  ever  have 
been  missed  by  any  unsophisticated  and  earnest  in- 
quirer. The  sacredness  of  the  founder's  assignment 
should  continue  during  his  own  life,  and  for  such 
longer  period  as  the  foresight  of  a  prudent  man  may 
be  presumed  to  reach,  and  no  further.  We  do  not 
pretend  to  fix  the  exact  term  of  years ;  perhaps  there 
is  no  necessity  for  its  being  accurately  fixed :  but  it 
evidently  should  be  but  a  moderate  one.  For  such  a 
period,  it  conduces  to  the  ends  for  which  foundations 
ought  to  exist,  and  for  which  alone  they  can  ever  ration- 
ally have  been  intended  that  they  should  remain  un- 
disturbed. 

All  beyond  this  is  to  make  the  dead,  judges  of  the 
exigencies  of  the  living ;  to  erect,  not  merely  the  ends, 
but  the  means,  not  merely  the  speculative  opinions, 
but  the  practical  expedients,  of  a  gone-by  age,  into  an 
irrevocable  law  for  the  present.  The  wisdom  of  our 
ancestors  was  mostly  a  poor  wisdom  enough  :  but  this 
is  not  even  following  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors  ;  for 
our  ancestors  did  not  bind  themselves  never  to  alter 
what  they  had  once  established.  Under  the  guise  of 
fulfilling  a  bequest,  this  is  making  a  dead  man's  in- 
tentions for  a  single  day  a  rule  for  subsequent  centuries. 


CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.     33 

when  we  know  not  whether  he  himself  would  have 
made  it  a  rule  even  for  the  morrow. 

There  is  no  fact  in  history  which  posterity  will  find 
it  more  difficult  to  understand  than  that  the  idea  of 
perpetuity,  and  that  of  any  of  the  contrivances  of  man, 
should  have  been  coupled  together  in  any  sane  mind ; 
that  it  has  been  believed,  nay,  clung  to  as  sacred  truth, 
and  has  formed  part  of  the  creed  of  whole  nations, 
that  a  signification  of  the  will  of  a  man,  ages  ago, 
could  impose  upon  all  mankind,  now  and  for  ever, 
an  obligation  of  obeying  him  ;  that,  in  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  was  not  permitted  to 
question  this  doctrine  without  opprobrium  ;  though,  for 
hundreds  of  years  before,  a  solemn  condemnation  of 
this  very  absurdity  had  been  incorporated  in  the  laws, 
and  familiar  to  every  judge  by  whom,  during  all  that 
period,  they  had  been  administered. 

During  the  last  four  hundred  years  or  thereabouts, 
in  England  and  Wales,  the  power  of  a  landed  proprietor 
to  entail  his  land  in  favor  of  a  particular  line  of  his 
descendants  has  been  narrowed  to  a  very  moderate  term 
of  years  after  his  decease.  During  a  similar  length  of 
time,  it  has  been  laid  down  as  a  maxim  of  the  com- 
mon law,  in  the  sweeping  terms  in  which  technical 
jurisprudence  delights,  that  "the  law  abliors  perpetui- 
ties." It  is  now  a  considerable  number  of  years  since 
a  London  merchant  *  having  by  testament  directed  that 
the  bulk  of  his  fortune  should  accumulate  for  two 
generations,  and  then  devolve  without  restriction  upon 
a  person  specified ;  this  will,  rare  as  such  dispositions 
might  be  expected  to  be,  excited  so  much  disapprobation, 

*  Mr.  Thelusson,  ancestor  of  the  present  Lord  Rendlesham.  ^ 

VOL.    I.  3 


84     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

that  an  act  of  Parliament  was  passed,  expressly  to 
enact  that  nothing  of  the  same  sort  should  be  done  in 
future. 

Is  it  of  consequence  to  the  public  by  whom  and  how 
private  property  is  inherited,  which,  whoever  possess 
it,  will  in  the  main  be  spent  in  ministering  to  one  per- 
son's individual  wants  and  enjoyments  ?  and  is  the  use 
made  of  a  like  sum,  specifically  set  apart  for  the  benefit 
of  the  public,  or  of  an  indefinite  portion  of  the  public, 
a  matter  in  which  the  nation  has  no  concern  ?  Or  shall 
we  say  it  is  supposed  by  king,  lords,  and  commons, 
and  the  judges  of  the  land,  that  a  man  cannot  know 
what  partition  of  his  property  among  his  descendants, 
thirty  years  hence,  will  be  for  the  interest  of  the  de- 
scendants themselves ;  but  that  he  may  know  (though 
he  have  scarcely  learnt  the  alphabet)  how  children  may 
be  best  educated  five  hundred  years  hence ;  how  the 
necessities  of  the  poor  may  then  be  best  provided  for ; 
what  branches  of  learning,  or  of  what  is  called  learn- 
ing, it  will  be  most  important  to  cultivate  ;  and  by  what 
body  of  men  it  will  be  desirable  that  the  people  should 
be  taught  religion  to  the  end  of  time? 

Men  would  not  yield  up  their  understandings  to 
doctrines  like  these,  if  they  were  not  under  some  strong 
bias.  Such  thoughts  never  sprung  from  reason  and 
reflection.  The  cry  about  robbing  the  Church,  spolia- 
tion of  endowments,  &c.,  means  only  that  the  speaker 
likes  better  the  purposes  to  which  the  moneys  are  now 
applied  than  those  to  which  he  thinks  they  would  be 
applied  if  they  were  resumed ;  a  feeling,  which,  when 
founded  on  conviction,  is  entitled  to  respect :  but,  were 
it  even  just,  we  do  not  see  why  a  person,  who  has  got 


CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.      35 

at  his  conclusions  by  good  arguments,  should  defend 
them  by  badi  It  may  be  very  unwise  to  alienate  the 
property  of  some  particular  foundation ;  but  that  does 
not  make  it  robbery.  If  it  be  inexpedient,  prove  it  so  ; 
but  do  not  pretend  that  it  is  a  crime  to  disobey  a  man's 
injunctions  who  has  been  dead  five  hundred  years.  We 
fear,  too,  that  this  zeal  for  the  inviolability  of  endow- 
ments proceeds  often  from  a  feeling  which  we  find  it 
more  difficult  to  bear  with,  —  that  unreasoning  instinct, 
whiph  renders  those  whose  souls  are  buried  in  their 
acres,  or  pent  up  in  their  money-bags,  partisans  of  the 
uti  possidetis  principle  in  all  things  ;  the  dread,  that,  if 
any  thing  is  taken  from  anybody,  every  thing  will  be 
taken  from  everybody ;  a  terror,  the  more  passionate 
because  it  is  vague,  at  seeing  violent  hands  laid  upon 
their  Dagon  money,  though  it  be  but  to  rescue  him 
from  the  hands  of  those  who  have  filched  him  away. 

That  this  is  the  real  source  of  much  of  the  horror 
which  is  felt  at  a  bare  proposal  that  the  Legislature 
should  lay  a  finger  upon  the  estates  of  a  public  trust, 
although  it  be  to  restore  them  to  their  original  pur- 
poses, is  manifest  from  this,  that  the  same  persons  can 
witness  the  most  absolute  perversion  and  ahenation  of 
the  endowment  from  its  destined  ends,  by  the  slow, 
silent  creeping-in  of  abuse  in  the  hands  of  the  trustees 
themselves,  and  not  feel  the  slightest  discomposure. 
Wherefore?  Their  solicitude  was  not  for  the  objects 
of  the  endowment,  but  for  the  safety  and  sacredness  of 
"vested  rights."  They  dislike  the  example  of  search- 
ing in  a  person's  pocket,  although  it  be  for  stolen  goods. 
For  them,  it  is  enough  if  the  nine  points  of  the  law 
maintain  their  wonted  sanctity.     Those  they  are  sure 


36     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

they  have  on  their  side,  if  any  troublesome  questioner 
should,  in  their  turn,  incommode  them.  The  tenth 
point  is  much  more  intricate  and  obscure,  and  they 
have  not  half  so  much  faith  in  it. 

To  every  argument  tending  to  prove  the  utility  of 
the  Church  Estabhshment,  or  any  other  endowed  public 
institution,  unprejudiced  attention  is  due.  Like  all 
reasons  wliich  are  brought  to  show  the  inexpediency 
of  a  proposed  innovation,  they  cannot  be  too  carefiilly 
weighed.  But  when  it  is  called  spoliation  of  property 
for  the  State  to  alter  a  disposition  made  by  the  State 
itself,  or  by  an  individual  who  died  six  hundred  years 
ago,  we  answer,  that  no  person  ought  to  be  exercising 
rights  of  property  six  hundred  years  after  his  death ; 
that  such  rights  of  property,  if  they  have  been  unwisely 
sanctioned  by  the  State,  ought  to  be  instantaneously  put 
an  end  to  ;  that  there  is  no  fear  of  robbing  a  dead  man  ; 
and  no  reasonable  man,  who  gave  his  money,  when  liv- 
ing, for  the  benefit  of  the  community,  would  have  desired 
that  his  mode  of  benefiting  the  community  should  be 
adhered  to  when  a  better  could  be  found. 

Thus  far  of  the  imaginary  rights  of  the  founder. 
Next  as  to  those  rights  of  another  kind,  which,  in  the 
case  of  an  existing  endowment,  have  usually  sprung  up 
in  consequence  of  its  existence,  —  the  life-interests  of  the 
actual  holders.  How  far  are  these  analoffous  to  what 
are  deemed  rights  of  property?  —  that  is,  rights  which 
it  is  unjust  to  take  from  the  possessor  without  his  con- 
sent, or  without  giving  him  a  full  equivalent. 

There  are  some  endowments  in  which  the  life-inter- 
esta  amount  to  rights  of  property  in  the  strictest  sense. 
These  are  such  as  are  created  for  the  application  of 


CORPORATION   AND    CHURCH    PROPERTY.  37 

/ 

their  revenues  to  the  mere  use  and  enjoyment  of  indi- 
viduals of  a  particular  description ;  to  give  pensions 
to  indigent  persons,  or  to  persons  devoted  to  particular 
pursuits ;  to  relieve  the  necessities,  or  reward  the  ser- 
vices, of  persons  of  a  particular  kind,  by  supporting 
them  in  alms-houses  or  hospitals. 

There  are  probably  but  a  small  proportion  of  these 
endowments  which  are  fit  for  indefinite  continuance  : 
mankind  have  begun  to  find  out  that  the  mass  of  pov- 
erty is  increased,  not  diminished,  by  these  impotent 
attempts  to  keep  pace  with  it  by  mere  giving.  AU, 
however,  who  are  actually  benefiting  by  such  institu- 
tions, have  a  right  to  the  continuance  of  the  benefit, 
which  should  be  as  inviolable  as  the  right  of  the  weaver 
to  the  produce  of  his  loom.  They  have  it  by  gift,  as 
much  so  as  if  the  founder  were  ahve,  and  had  settled 
it  upon  them  by  deed  under  hand  and  seal.  To  take  it 
from  an  existing  incumbent  would  be  an  ex-post-facto 
law  of  the  worst  kind.  It  would  be  the  same  sort  of 
injustice,  as  if,  in  abolishing  entails,  the  existing  landed 
proprietors  were  to  be  ejected  from  their  estates,  on  the 
plea  that  the  estates  had  come  to  them  by  entail  from 
their  predecessors. 

These  rights,  however,  are  never  any  thing  but  life- 
interests.  Such  pensions  or  alms  are  not  hereditary. 
They  are  not  transmissible  by  will  or  by  gift.  There  is 
no  assignable  person  standing  in  remainder  or  reversion ; 
no  individual  specially  designated,  either  by  law  or  cus- 
tom, to  succeed  to  a  vacancy  as  it  arises.  No  person 
would  suffer  any  privation,  or  be  disappointed  in  any 
authorized  expectation,  by  the  resumption  of  the  endow- 
ment at  the  death  of  the  existing  incumbents.     There 


38     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

18  no  loss  where  nobody  will  ever  know  who  has  lost. 
To  say  that  the  funds  cannot  rightfully  be  resumed  at 
the  expiration  of  the  life-interests,  because  somebody 
or  other  would  succeed  to  them  if  they  continued  to 
exist,  is  tantamount  to  affirming  that  the  army  or  navy 
can  never  be  reduced  without  an  act  of  spoliation,  be- 
cause, if  they  were  kept  up,  somebody,  to  be  sure, 
would  be  made  a  cadet  or  a  midshipman,  who  otherwise 
will  not.* 

But  there  is  another  and  a  far  more  important  class 
of  endowments,  where  the  object  is,  not  a  provision  for 
individuals  of  whatsoever  description,  but  the  further- 
ance of  some  public  purpose ;  as  the  cultivation  of 
learning,  the  diffusion  of  religious  instruction,  or  the 
education  of  youth.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the  nature 
of  the  Church  property,  and  the  property  attached  to 
the  universities  and  the  foundation-schools.  The  indi- 
viduals through  whose  hands  the  money  passes  never 
entered  into  the  founder's  contemplation  otherwise  than 
as  mere  trustees  for  the  public  purpose.  The  founder  of 
a  college  at  Oxford  did  not  bestow  his  property  in  order 
that  some  men  then  living,  and  an  indefinite  series 
of  successors  appointing  one  another  in  a  direct  line, 
might  be  comfortably  fed  and  clothed.  He,  we  may 
presume,  intended  no  benefit  to  them,  further  than  as 
a  necessary  means  to  the  end  he  had  in  view,  —  the 

*  Charities  or  liberalities  of  this  kind  are  not  alwaj's  unconditional :  they 
may  be  burthened  with  the  perfonnance  of  some  duty.  Still,  if  the  duty 
be  merely  an  incidental  charge,  and  the  main  purpose  of  the  endowment  be 
a  provision  for  the  individuals,  the  Legislature,  though  it  maj'  release  the 
incumbents  from  the  performance  of  the  duty,  is  not  at  liberty,  on  that  pre- 
text, to  make  them  forfeit  the  right.  This  they  ought  to  retain  for  their 
lives,  or  for  the  term  of  years  for  which  it  was  conferred,  provided  they  hold 
themselves  in  readiness  to  fulfll  its  conditions,  so  far  as  they  lawfully  may. 


CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.     39 

education  of  youth,  and  the  advancement  of  learning. 
The  like  is  true  of  the  Church  property :  it  is  held  in 
trust  for  the  spiritual  culture  of  the  people  of  England. 
The  clergy  and  the  universities  are  not  proprietors, 
nor  even  partly  trustees  and  partly  proprietors  :  they 
are  called  so,  we  know,  in  law,  and,  for  legal  purposes, 
may  be  so  called  without  impropriety ;  but  moral  right 
does  not  necessarily  wait  upon  the  convenience  of 
technical  classification.  '  The  trustees  are  indeed,  at 
present,  owing  to  th^  supineness  of  the  Legislature,  the 
sole  tribunal  empowered  to  judge  of  the  performance 
of  the  trust ;  but  it  will  scarcely  be  pretended  that  the 
money  is  made  over  to  them  for  any  other  reason  than 
because  they  are  charged  with  the  trust,  or  that  it  is 
not  an  implied  condition  that  they  shall  apply  every  shil- 
ling of  it  with  an  exclusive  regard  to  the  performance 
of  the  duty  intrusted  to  the  collective  body. 

Yet  of  persons  thus  situated,  persons  whose  interest 
in  the  foundation  is  entirely  subsidiary  and  subordinate, 
the  whole  of  whose  rights  exist  solely  as  the  necessary 
means  to  enable  them  to  perform  certain  duties,  it  is 
currently  asserted,  and  in  the  tone  in  which  men  affirm 
a  self-evident  moral  truth,  that  the  endowments  of  the 
Church  and  of  the  universities  are  their  property,  to 
deprive  them  of  which  would  be  as  much  an  act  of  con- 
fiscation as  to  rob  a  landowner  of  his  estate. 

Their  property !  In  what  system  of  legislative 
ethics,  or  even  of  positive  law,*  is  an  estate  in  the 

*  If  any  caviller  should  say  that  the  English  common  law  is  an  excep- 
tion, inasmuch  as  trusts  are  not  recognized  or  enforced  by  the  common-law 
courts,  the  legal  estate  vesting  in  the  trustee,  we  answer,  that  we  cannot 
consider  any  thing  as  law  which  does  not  actually  obtain  as  such,  but  is 
superseded  by  the  contrary  mandates  of  the  rival  power.  Equity. 


40     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

hands  of  trustees  the  property  of  the  trustees?  It  is 
the  property  of  the  cestui  que  trust;  of  the  person,  or 
body  of  persons,  for  whose  benefit  the  trust  is  created. 
This,  in  the  case  of  a  national  endowment,  is  the  entire 
people.* 

The  claims  of  the  clergy,  and  of  the  various  members 
of  the  universities,  to  the  retention  of  their  present 
incomes,  are  of  a  widely  different  nature  from  those 
rights  which  are  intended  when  we  speak  of  the  invio- 
lability of  property,  and  stand  upon  a  totally  different 
foundation.  The  same  person  who  is  a  trustee  is  also 
a  laborer.  He  is  to  be  paid  for  his  services.  What  he 
is  entitled  to  is  his  wages  while  those  services  are  re- 
quired, and  such  retiring  allowance  as  is  stipulated  in 
his  engagement.  All  his  just  pretensions  depend  on 
the  terms  of  his  contract.  He  would  have  no  ground 
of  complaint,  unless  on  the  score  of  inhumanity,  if, 
when  his  services  are  no  longer  needed,  he  were  dis- 
missed without  a  provision,  unless  the  contract  by  which 
he  was  engaged  had  expressly  or  tacitly  provided  other- 
wise. 

It  is,  however,  the  fact,  that  in  the  majority  of  cases, 
and  particularly  in  the  case  of  the  Church  and  of  the 

*  In  the  case  of  endowments,  which,  though  existing  for  public  pur- 
poses, are  not  national,  but  local,  such  as  the  estates  of  the  city  of  London, 
the  cestvi  que  tinist  is  not  the  entire  people,  but  some  limited  portion  of  them ; 
namely,  those  who  are  directly  reached  bj'  the  benefit  intended  to  be  con- 
ferred. To  apply  such  property  to  national  purposes,  without  the  consent, 
duly  signified,  of  the  fractional  part  of  the  nation  which  is  interested  in  it, 
might  be  wrong.  But  that  fractional  portion  is  generally  far  larger  than  the 
body  which  the  law  now  recognizes  as  the  proprietor.  We  hold,  for  exam- 
ple, that,  if  the  Legislature  (as  it  ought)  should  unite  the  whole  of  the  me- 
tropolis into  one  body  for  municipal  purposes,  the  estates  of  the  city  of 
London,  and  probably  those  of  the  incorporated  trades,  might  be  applied  to 
the  benefit  of  that  collective  body,  without  injustice. 


CORPOEATION  AND  CHUKCH  PROPERTY.     41 

universities,  the  incumbents  hold  their  emoluments 
under  an  implied  contract,  which  fully  entitles  them 
to  retain  the  whole  amount  during  the  term  of  their 
lives. 

If  the  army  were  to  be  remodelled,  or  to  be  reduced, 
and  the  whole  of  the  officers  changed,  or  a  part  of  them 
discarded,  and  if  these  were  thrown  upon  the  world 
without  allowing  them  half-pay  or  the  pension  of  their 
rank,  there  would  not  (it  will  probably  be  allowed)  be 
any  spoliation  of  property ;  but  it  might  be  said,  with 
justice,  that  there  would  be  a  breach  of  an  implied  con- 
tract, because  the  State  would  be  defeating  an  expecta- 
tion raised  by  its  own  uniform  practice.  Half-pay  or  a 
pension  is  certainly  not  promised  to  an  officer  when  he 
enters  the  army ;  he  does  not  give  his  services  on  that 
express  condition :  but  ^he  regulations  of  the  army 
have  from  time  immemorial  sanctioned  the  practice,  and 
led  the  officers  to  count  upon  it ;  and  they  give  their 
services  on  that  understanding. 

The  case  of  the  clergyman  only  differs  from  that  of 
the  military  officer  in  this,  —  that  the  one,  by  custom, 
may  be  deprived  of  his  place,  but  retains  a  part  of  its 
emoluments :  the  other,  by  a  different  custom,  retains 
his  place,  emoluments  and  all,  for  the  remainder  of  his 
life.  If  this  were  the  practice  in  the  army,  then,  instead 
of  half-pay,  an  officer  would  never  retire  on  less  than 
full ;  and  all  persons  would  see,  that,  whether  this  was 
a  good  practice  or  not,  it  ought  not  to  be  abolished 
retrospectively.  The  same  argument  holds  good  in  the 
case  of  the  clergyman. 

It  cannot  be  doubted,  that  where  the  emoluments  of 
a  public  officer  have,  by  the  uniform  practice  of  ages, 


42     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

been  considered  as  placed  out  of  the  control  of  the  Legis- 
lature, to  exercise  that  control  to  the  disadvantage  of 
the  individual,  Avithout  giving  him  notice  before  he  ac- 
cepts the  office,  is  an  injustice  to  him.  It  gives  him 
reasonable  ground  for  complaining  of  a  breach  of  con- 
tract, and  should  be  scrupulously  avoided,  even  if  it 
were  not  something  more  than  merely  impolitic  to  im- 
molate large  classes  of  persons  for  the  pecuniary  gain 
of  the  remainder,  and  most  unvrise  to  teach  a  multi- 
tude of  influential  persons  that  their  only  means  of 
maintaining  themselves  and  their  families  in  their  accus- 
tomed comfort  is  by  a  successful  resistance  to  political 
reforms. 

In  return  for  the  continuation  of  the  life-interests 
after  releasing  the  incumbents  from  the  performance  of 
the  accompanying  duties,  th£  State,  of  course,  would 
acquire  a  right  to  the  services  of  the  individuals  in  any 
other  mode  in  which  it  could  turn  them  to  use,  pro- 
vided it  were  one  suited  to  the  station  they  had  formerly 
filled. 

We  have  endeavored  to  make  as  clear  as  possible  the 
real  grounds  of  the  moral  question  respecting  the  inter- 
ference of  the  Legislature  with  foundations.  We  have 
affirmed  that  it  is  no  violation  of  any  right  which  ought 
to  exist  in  the  founder,  to  set  aside  ^his  dispositions 
many  years  after  his  decease  ;  but  that,  where  individuals 
have  been  allowed  to  acquire  beneficial  interests  in  the 
endowment,  these  ought,  in  general,  to  be  respected; 
being,  in  most  cases,  either  rights  of  property  for  life, 
or  rights  for  life  by  virtue  of  an  implied  contract.  But, 
wit.»i  the  reservation  of  these  life-interests,  the  Legisla- 


r 


COEPORATIOX   AND   CHUECH  PEOPEKTY.  43 

ture  is  at  liberty  to  dispose,  at  its  discretion,  of  the 
endowment,  after  that  moderate  number  of  years  has 
elapsed  from  the  date  of  its  formation,  beyond  which 
the  foresight  of  an  individual  cannot  reasonably  be  sup- 
posed to  extend. 

We  feel  certain  that  the  conclusion  which  we  have 
just  stated  is  fully  made  out,  and  that  nothing  in  the 
nature  of  an  argument,  capable  of  bearing  examination, 
can  be  brought  to  invalidate  it.  But  it  is  harder,  in 
some  cases,  to  convince  men's  imagination  than  their 
reason ;  and  scarcely  any  thing  which  can  be  said  is 
enough  to  destroy  the  force  of  an  objection,  which  is  yet 
a  mere  illusion  of  the  imagination,  by  the  aid  of  a  col- 
lective name. 

Would  you  rob  the  Church  ?  it  is  asked.  And  at  the 
sound  of  these  words  rise  up  images  of  rapine,  violence, 
plunder ;  and  every  sentiment  of  repugnance  which 
would  be  excited  by  a  proposal  to  take  away  from  an 
individual  the  earnings  of  his  toil,  or  the  inheritance  of 
his  fathers,  comes  heightened  in  the  particular  case  by 
the  added  idea  of  sacrilege. 

But  the  Church  !  Who  is  the  Church?  Who  is  it 
that  we  desire  to  rob?  Who  are  the  persons  whose 
property,  whose  rights,  we  are  proposing  to  take  away? 

Not  the  clergy :  from  them  we  do  not  propose  to 
take  any  thing.  To  every  man  who  now  benefits  by 
the  endowment,  we  have  said  that  Ave  would  leave  his 
entire  income ;  at  least,  until  the  State  shall  offer,  as 
the  purchase-money  of  his  services  in  some  other  shape, 
advantages  which  he  himself  shall  regard  as  equivalent. 

But,  if  not  the  clergy,  surely  we  are  not  proposing  to 
rob  the  laity :  on  the  contrary,   they  are  robbed  now, 


44     COEPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTr. 

if  the  fact  be  that  the  application  of  the  money  to  its 
present  purpose  is  no  longer  advisable.  We  are  ex- 
horting the  laity  to  claim  their  property  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  clergy,  who  are  not  the  Church,  but  only 
the  managfing:  members  of  the  association. 

"Qui  trompe-t-ofi  ici?"  asks  Figaro.  "Qui  vole-t- 
on ici?"  may  well  be  asked.  What  man,  woman,  or 
child  is  the  victim  of  this  robbery  ?  Who  suffers  by  the 
robbery,  when  everybody  robs  nobody  ?  But  though  no 
man,  woman,  or  cliild  is  robbed,  the  Church,  it  seems, 
is  robbed.  What  follows  ?  That  the  Church  may  be 
robbed,  and  no  man,  woman,  or  child  be  the  worse  for 
it.  If  this  be  so,  why,  in  Heaven's  name,  should  it  not 
be  done  ?  If  money  or  money's  worth  can  be  squeezed 
out  of  an  abstraction,  we  would  appropriate  it  without 
scruple.     We  had  no  idea  that  the  region  — 

"  Where  entity  and  quiddity, 
The  ghosts  of  defunct  bodies,  fly," 

was  an  Eldorado  of  riches.  We  wish  all  other  abstract 
ideas  had  as  ample  a  patrimony.  It  is  fortunate  that 
their  estates  are  of  a  less  volatile  and  airy  nature  than 
themselves,  and  that  here  at  length  is  a  chimoRra  bom- 
hinans  in  vacuo  which  lives  upon  something  more  sub- 
stantial than  secundas  intentiones.  We  hold  all  such 
entia  rationis  to  be  fair  game,  and  their  possessions  a 
legitimate  subject  of  invasion  and  conquest. 

Any  act  may  be  a  crime,  if  giving  it  a  bad  name 
could  make  it  so ;  but  the  robbery  that  we  object  to 
must  be  something  more  than  robbing:  a  word.  The 
laws  of  property  were  made  for  the  protection  of  hu- 
man beings,  and  not  of  phrases.  As  long  as  the  bread 
is  not  taken  from  any  of  our  fellow-creatures,  we  care 


<X)RPOEATION   AND   CHUKCH   PEOPERTY.  45 

not  though  the  whole  English  dictionary  had  to  beg  in 
the  streets.  Let  those,  who  think  it  a  robbery  for  the 
nation  to  resume  what  we  say  is  its  own,  tell  us  whose 
it  is ;  let  them  inform  us  what  human  creatures  it  be- 
longs to,  not  what  letters  and  syllables.  The  alphabet 
has  no  property ;  and,  if  it  bring  an  action  for  damages 
in  any  court  where  we  are  judge,  it  shall  be  nonsuited. 

But  the  Church,  it  will  be  said,  is  a  corporation  (or, 
in  strictness  of  legal  language,  an  aggregate  of  many 
corporations)  ;  and  a  corporation  is  a  pey'son,  and  may 
hold  property,  and  bring  an  action  at  law.  A  corpora- 
tion never  dies,  but  is  like  a  river,  —  ever  flowing,  yet 
always  the  same  :  while  it  empties  at  one  extremity,  it 
fills  at  the  other,  and  preserves  its  identity  by  the  con- 
tinuity of  its  existence.  Whatever  is  acquired  for  the 
corporation  belongs  to  the  corporation,  even  when  all  its 
members  have  died  out,  and  been  succeeded  by  others. 
So  London  stands  upon  the  Thames  as  it  did  at  the 
Conquest,  though  not  one  drop  of  water  be  the  same. 

It  is  quite  unnecessary  to  remind  us  of  all  this.  It 
is  true  that  such  is  the  law.  We  admit  that  the  law 
can  call  a  man  now  living  and  a  man  not  yet  bom  the 
same  person ;  but  that  does  not  hinder  them  from  being- 
different  men.  Having  declared  them  one  person,  it 
may  ordain  that  the  income  held  by  one,  in  a  certain 
capacity,  shall  pass,  on  his  death,  to  the  other.  There 
is  nothing  at  all  inconceivable  in  the  idea ;  so  far  from 
it,  that  such  is  actually  the  fact.  It  is  as  simple  and  as 
easy  as  to  say  that  a  man's  income  shall  pass  to  the 
man's  own  son.  It  is  one  of  the  modes  in  which  prop- 
erty may  be  legally  transmitted.  It  is  part  of  the  law 
of  inheritance  and  succession. 


46  CORPORATION   AND  CHURCH   PROPERTY. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  intention  entertained  of  dis- 
puting all  this.  The  law  is  precisely  as  it  is  said  to 
be ;  but,  because  the  law  is  so,  does  it  follow  that  it 
ought  to  be,  or  that  it  must  remain  protected  against 
amendment  more  than  any  other  of  the  laws  which  reg- 
ulate the  succession  to  property  ? 

All,  or  almost  all,  laws  give  rights  to  somebody. 
By  the  abrogation  of  any,  or  almost  any  laws,  some 
rights  would  be  prevented  from  existing.  But,  because 
a  law  has  once  been  enacted,  ought  it  to  subsist  for 
ever?  We  know  that  there  are  some  alterations  in  the 
law,  which  would  be,  morally  speaking,  infringements 
of  property.  What  makes  them  so?  Not,  surely,  the 
mere  fact,  inseparable  from  the  repeal  of  any  law  what- 
ever, that  the  class  of  rights  which  it  created  ceases  to 
exist.  Where,  then,  lies  the  distinction?  There  is  no 
difficulty  about  it,  nor  ever  was.  The  difference  is, 
that  some  laws  cannot  be  altered  without  painfully  frus- 
trating existing  and  authorized  expectations ;  for  which, 
therefore,  compensation  is,  in  all  or  most  cases,  due. 
Now,  in  the  case  of  church-property,  no  authorized  ex- 
pectations are  defeated,  unless  those  of  existing  incum- 
bents :  this  evil  is  prevented  if  the  life-interests  of  the 
incumbents  are  preserved  to  them.*  To  make  the 
semblance  of  an  injury,  where  there  is  none,  nothing 
better  can  be  thought  of  than  to  lump  together  the  liv- 
ing incumbents  and  their  unborn  successors  into  one 
undivided  mass,  call  the  entire  heap  one  person,  and 

*  To  make  the  proposition  absolutely  unassailable,  instead  of  "  existing 
incumbents,"  it  should  perhaps  be  said,  persons  actually  in  orders.  All 
authorized  expectations  of  unbeneficed  expectants  would  be  satisfied  by 
postponing  the  resumption  for  a  sufficient  number  of  years,  to  enable  their 
expectation,  if  well  grounded,  to  become  possession. 


CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTT.     47 

pretend  that  not  to  give  to  the  unborn  man  is  to  take 
from  the  living  one. 

To  resume  endowments  would  mcontestably  be  to  set 
aside,  by  an  act  of  the  Legislature,  a  disposition  of 
property  lawfully  made.  It  would  be  a  change  in  the 
laws,  but  a  change  which  is  allowable,  if  to  alter  a 
disposition  of  law  be  ever  allowable.  The  fact  of  its 
being  a  disposition  of  property  can  make  no  difference. 
Property  surely  may  be  appropriated  by  law  to  pur- 
poses from  which  it  may  be  highly  desirable  that  it 
should  be  alienated.  Much  property  is  set  apart  by 
the  laws  of  all  idolatrous  nations  for  the  special  use  and 
service  of  their  gods.  Large  revenues  are  annually 
expended  in  offerings  to  those  gods.  To  resume  those 
revenues  would  manifestly  be  robbing  Baal.  They  are 
his  by  law  :  law  cannot  give  a  clearer  right  of  property 
than  he  has  to  them.  A  lawyer,  addressing  a  court  of 
justice,  would  have  nothing  to  object  to  this  argument ; 
but  a  moralist  or  a  legislator  might  say  that  the  reve- 
nues were  of  no  use  to  Baal,  and  that  he  would  never 
miss  them. 

We  of  this  generation  are  not  addicted  to  falling 
down  before  a  Baal  of  brass  or  stone :  the  idols  we 
worship  are  abstract  terms  ;  the  divinities  to  whom  we 
render  up  our  substance  are  personifications.  Besides 
our  duties  to  our  fellow-countrymen,  we  owe  duties  to 
the  Oonstitution ;  privileges  which  landlords  or  mer- 
chants have  no  claim  to  must  be  granted  to  agriculture 
or  trade;  and,  when  every  clergyman  has  received  the 
last  halfpenny  of  his  dues  and  expectations,  there  re- 
main rights  of  the  Church,  which  it  would  be  sacrilege 
to  violate. 


48     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

To  all  such  rights  we  confess  our  indifference.  The 
only  moral  duties  which  we  are  conscious  of  are  towards 
living  beings,  either  present  or  to  come,  who  can  be  in 
some  way  better  for  what  we  do  or  forbear.  When  we 
have  done  our  duty  to  all  these,  we  feel  easy  in  our 
minds,  and  sleep  with  an  untroubled  conscience  the 
sleep  of  the  just,  —  a  sleep  which  the  groans  of  no 
plundered  abstraction  are  loud  enough  to  disturb. 

If  the  case  were  not  already  far  more  than  sufficiently 
made  out,  it  would  be  pertinent  to  observe,  that  the 
Church  of  England,  least  of  all  religious  establishments, 
is  entitled  to  dispute  the  power  of  the  Legislature  to 
alter  the  destination  of  endowments,  since  it  owes 
to  the  exercise  of  such  a  power  all  its  ovm  posses- 
sions. 

The  Roman-Catholic  Church  derived  its  property 
from  an  earlier  source  than  any  of  the  existing  govern- 
ments of  Christendom,  It  is,  moreover,  a  society 
within  itself,  which  existed  anterior  to  the  State,  which 
is  organized  independently  of  the  State  ;  and  no  changes 
in  the  State  can  aifect  its  identity  or  its  constitution. 
Its  endowments  too,  or  a  great  part  of  them,  came 
into  its  hands,  not  for  public  purposes,  but  for  private  ; 
not  in  trust,  but  by  fair  bargain  and  sale  :  the  donor 
taking  out  the  value  in  masses  for  his  private  salvation  ; 
thereby,  as  he  hoped,  effecting  an  earlier  liberation  of 
his  individual- soul  from  purgatory.  If  any  ecclesiasti- 
cal establishment,  therefore,  could  be  entitled  to  deem 
itself  ill  used  in  having  its  property  taken  away  from  it, 
this  might.  Not  so  the  Church  of  England.  She, 
from  her  origin,  never  was  any  thing  but  a  State 
Church.     All  the  property  she  ever  had,  the  State  first 


CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.     49 

took  from  the  Roman -Catholic  Church;*  exercising 
therein  a  just  and  proper  attribute  of  sovereignty,  but 
perpetrating  a  flagrant  wrong  in  paying  little  or  no 
regard  to  life-interests,  and  consigning  the  incumbents 
to  penurj.  The  corporation  which  was  then  turned  out 
of  house  and  home  still  exists,  and  is,  in  every  respect, 
the  same  as  before  ;  but,  if  the  Church  of  England  were 
separated  from  the  State,  its  identity  as  a  corporation 
would  be  gone,  the  present  religious  society  would  be 
dissolved,  and  a  new  one  formed,  under  different  rules 
and  a  different  principle  of  government.  From  a 
monarchy,  it  would  be  changed  to  a  republic ;  from 
a  system  of  nomination,  to  one  of  election.  A  Catholic 
bishop  can  look  out  upon  the  fair  and  broad  domains  of 
his  Protestant  substitute,  and  say,  "  All  this  would  have 
been  mine ; "  but,  let  the  State  endowments  be  once 
withdrawn  from  the  Church  of  England,  her  mitred  but 
unpalaced  prelates  will  indulge  in  no  such  delusion. 
Nobody,  we  suppose,  will  then  stand  up  for  the  simoni- 
acal  abuses  of  lay-patronage  and  conges  d^Slire;  and 
the  divine  who  for  his  piety  and  learning  shall  have 
been  elected  Rector  of  Stanhope,  or  Bishop  of  Winches- 
ter, if  he  ever  cast  a  wistful  thought  towards  the  pris- 
tine appendages  of  his  dignity,  will  check  it  by  the 
reflection  that  they  would  not  have  belonged  to  him, 
but  to  some  political  tool,  some  tutor  or  chaplain  of 
a  minister,   or  the  stupidest  son  of  some  squirarchal 

*  We  know  it  is  contended  that  there  was  no  transfer  of  property  at  the 
Reformation  from  one  church  to  another,  but  that  it  was  still  the  same 
church,  which  had  merely  changed  a  portion  of  its  opinions ;  but  were  not 
many  prelates  expelled  from  their  sees,  and  parochial  clergy  from  their 
benefices  ?  and  was  not  this  done  by  the  act  of  Parliament  which  imposed 
the  oath,  of  supremacy,  and  not  by  the  canonical  authority  of  any  merely 
ecclesiastical  tribunal  ? 

VOL.  I.  4 


50     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

house.  A  Catholic  prelate,  no  doubt,  believes  at  heart 
that  he  has  been  robbed,  as  the  descendants  of  the  Pre- 
tender would  have  believed,  to  the  latest  generation, 
that  they  ought  to  be  kings  of  England  ;  but  an  Eng- 
lish Protestant  bishop,  who  (after  his  church,  in  ceasing 
to  receive  State  pay,  had  ceased  also  to  be  fashioned  as 
a  State  tool)  should  still  fancy  that  he  was  the  person 
losing  by  the  abolition  of  the  salary,  must  be  strangely 
ignorant  of  the  history  of  England's  political  religion, 
as  well  as  of  something  else  which  would  have  taught 
hiin  that  a  person  honestly  selected  to  serve  God  was 
not  a  likely  individual  to  have  been  appointed  high 
priest  of  Mammon. 

Considering  it,  then,  as  indisputable,  that  endow- 
ments, after  a  certain  lapse  of  time,  may,  at  the 
discretion  of  the  Legislature,  be  diverted  from  their 
original  purposes,  it  remains  to  consider  by  what  prin- 
ciples or  rules  the  Legislature  is  bound  to  govern  itself 
in  the  exercise  of  this  discretion. 

We  would  prescribe  but  one  rule :  it  is  somewhat 
general,  but  sufficient  to  indicate  the  spirit  in  which  the 
control  of  the  Legislature  ought  to  be  exerted.  When 
a  resolution  has  been  taken  (which  should  never  be, 
except  on  strong  grounds)  to  alter  the  appropriation  of 
an  endowment,  the  first  object  should  be  to  employ  it 
usefully  ;  the  second,  to  depart  as  little  from  the  origi- 
nal purpose  of  the  foundation  as  is  consistent  with  that 
primary  object.  The  endeavor  should  be,  even  in 
altering  the  disposition  of  the  founder,  to  carry  into 
effect  as  much  of  his  intention  as  it  is  possible  to  realize, 
without  too  great  a  sacrifice  of  substantial  utility. 


CORPORATION   AND   CHURCH   PROPERTY.  51 

This  limitation  of  the  discretionary  power  of  inter- 
ference residing  in  the  Legislature,  would  meet,  we 
suspect,  with  as  much  resistance  (though  from. a  very 
different  sort  of  persons)  as  the  discretionary  power 
itself.  It  would  be  objected  to  by  some,  because  they 
are  desirous  to  confiscate  the  existing  endowments  to- 
wards paying  off  the  national  debt,  or  defraying*  the 
current  expenses  of  the  State ;  by  others,  because  they 
deem  foundations  altogether  to  be  rather  mischievous 
than  useful,  and  the  intentions  of  founders  to  be  unde- 
serving of  any  regard.  This  last  opinion  is  the  more 
entitled  to  notice,  as  among  its  supporters  is  to  be  num- 
bered the  great  and  good  Turgot.  That  eminently  wise 
man  thought  so  unfavorably  of  the  purposes  for  which 
endowments  are  usually  made,  and  of  the  average  intel- 
ligence of  the  founders,  that  he  was  an  enemy  to  foun- 
dations altogether. 

Notwithstanding  our  deep  reverence  for  this  illustrious 
man,  and  the  great  weight  which  is  due  to  his  senti- 
ments on  all  subjects  which  he  had  maturely  considered, 
we  must  regard  his  opinion  on  this  subject  as  one  of 
what  it  is  now  allowable  to  call  the  prejudices  of  his 
age.  The  wisest  person  is  not  safe  from  the  liability  to 
mistake  for  good  the  reverse  of  some  inveterate  and 
grievous  ill.  The  clearer  his  discernment  of  existing 
evils,  and  the  more  absolutely  his  whole  soul  is  engaged 
in  the  contest  against  them,  the  more  danger  that  the 
mischiefs  which  chiefly  occupy  his  own  thoughts  should 
render  him  insensible  to  their  contraries,  and  that,  in 
guarding  one  side,  he  should  leave  the  other  uncovered. 
If  Turgot  did  not  wholly  escape  this  error,  which  was 
common  to  all  the  philosophers  of  his  time,  ample  allow- 


52     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

ance  may  be  justly  claimed  both  for  him  and  for  them. 
It  is  not  the  least  of  the  mischiefs  of  our  mischievous 
prejudices,  that,  in  their  decline,  they  raise  up  counter- 
prejudices  ;  and  that  the  human  mind  must  oscillate  for 
a  tune  between  opposite  extremes,  before  it  can  settle 
quietly  in  the  middle.  The  prejudices  of  the  French 
philosophers  were  such  as  it  was  natural  should  exist, 
when  all  established  institutions  were  in  the  very  last 
stage  of  decay  and  decrepitude,  preparatory  to  the 
catastrophe  by  which,  soon  after,  they  were  swept 
away ;  when  whatever  was  meant  to  transmit  light  had 
become  a  curtain  to  keep  it  out,  and  whatever  was 
designed  for  protection  of  society  had  turned  to  prey- 
ing upon  society ;  when  every  trust  which  had  been 
reposed  in  individuals  for  the  benefit  of  the  species  had 
degenerated  into  a  selfish  job,  and  the  canker  had  eaten 
so  deeply  into  the  heart  of  civilization,  that  the  great- 
est genius  of  his  time  deliberately  preferred  the  condi- 
tion of  a  naked  savage. 

At  the  head  of  the  foundations  which  existed  in  the 
time- of  Turgot  was  the  Catholic  hierarchy,  then  almost 
effete ;  which  had  become  irreconcilably  hostile  to  the 
progress  of  the  human  mind,  because  that  progress  was 
no  longer  compatible  with  belief  in  its  tenets ;  and 
which,  to  stand  its  ground  against  the  advance  of  in- 
credulity, had  been  driven  to  knit  itself  closely  with  the 
temporal  despotism,  to  which  it  had  once  been  a  sub- 
stantial, and  the  only  existing,  impediment  and  control. 
After  this  came  monastic  bodies,  constituted  ostensibly 
for  purposes  which  derived  their  value  chiefly  from 
superstition,  and  now  not  even  fulfilling  what  they  pro- 
fessed ;  bodies  of  most  of  which  the  very  existence  had 


CORPORATION  AND   CHURCH  PROPERTY.     53 

become  one  vast  and  continued  imposture.  Next  came 
universities  and  academical  institutions,  which  had  once 
taught  all  that  was  then  known  ;  but,  having  ever  since 
indulged  their  ease  by  remaining  stationary,  found  it 
for  their  interest  that  knowledge  should  do  so  too, — 
institutions  for  education,  which  kept  a  century  behind 
the  community  they  affected  to  educate ;  who,  when 
Descartes  appeared,  publicly  censured  him  for  differing 
from  Aristotle  ;  and,  when  Newton  appeared,  anathema- 
tized him  for  differing  from  Descartes.  There  were 
hospitals  which  killed  more  of  their  unhappy  patients 
than  they  cured ;  and  charities,  of  which  the  superin- 
tendents, like  the  licentiate  in  "Gil  Bias,"  got  rich  by 
taking  care  of  the  affairs  of  the  poor  ;  or  which  at  best 
made  twenty  beggars,  by  giving,  or  pretending  to  give, 
a  miserable  and  dependent  pittance  to  one. 

The  foundations,  therefore,  were  among  the  grossest 
and  most  conspicuous  of  the  familiar  abuses  of  the 
time  ;  and  beneath  their  shade  flourished  and  multiplied 
large  classes  of  men,  by  interest  and  habit  the  protect- 
ors of  all  abuses  whatsoever.  What  wonder  that  a 
life  spent  in  practical  struggles  against  abuses  should 
have  strongly  prepossessed  Turgot  against  foundations 
in  general !  Yet  the  evils  existed,  not  because  there 
were  foundations,  but  because  those  foundations  were 
perpetuities,  and  because  provision  was  not  made  for 
their  continual  modification,  to  meet  the  wants  of  each 
successive  age. 

The  opinion  of  Turgot  was  sufficiently  in  accordance 
with  the  prevailing  philosophy  of  his  time.  It  is  rare 
that  the  same  heads  and  the  same  hands  excel  both  in 
pulling  down   and  in  building  up.     The  work  of  ur- 


54     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

gency  in  those  days  was  to  make  war  against  evil :  this 
the  philosophers  did ;  and  the  negation  of  evil  was 
nearly  all  the  good  which  their  philosophy  provided  for. 
They  seem  to  have  conceived  the  perfection  of  political 
society  to  be  reached,  if  man  could  but  be  compelled  to 
abstain  from  injuring  man ;  not  considering  that  men 
need  help  as  well  as  forbearance,  and  that  Nature  is  to 
the  gi'eater  number  a  severer  taskmaster  even  than  man 
is  to  man.  They  left  each  individual  to  fight  his  own 
battle  against  fate  and  necessity,  with  little  aid  from  his 
fellow-men,  save  what  he,  of  his  own  spontaneous  seek- 
ing, might  purchase  in  open  market,  and  pay  for. 

If  this  be  a  just  estimate  of  the  exigencies  of  human 
society ;  if  man  requires  nothing  from  man,  except  to 
be  guarded  against  molestation,  —  undoubtedly  founda- 
tions, and  many  other  things,  are  great  absurdities. 
But  we  may  conceive  a  people  perfectly  exempt  from 
oppression  by  their  government,  amply  protected  by  it 
both  against  foreign  enemies,  and  against  force  or  fraud 
as  between  its  own  citizens ;  we  may  conceive  all  this 
secured,  as  far  at  least  as  institutions  can  secure  it,  and 
yet  the  people  in  an  abject  state  of  degradation  both 
physical  and  mental. 

The  primary  and  perennial  sources  of  all  social  evil 
are  ignorance,  and  want  of  culture.  These  are  not 
reached  by  the  best  contrived  system  of  political  checks, 
necessary  as  such  checks  are  for  other  purposes.  There 
is  also  an  unfortunate  peculiarity  attending  these  evils. 
Of  all  calamities,  they  are  those  of  which  the  persons 
suffering  from  them  are  apt  to  be  least  aware.  Of 
their  bodily  wants  and  ailments,  mankind  are  generally 
conscious  ;  but  the  want  of  the  mind,  the  want  of  beins 


CORPOKATIOX  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.     55 

wiser  and  better,  is,  in  the  far  greater  number  of  cases, 
unfelt :  some  of  its  disastrous  consequences  are  felt, 
but  are  ascribed  to  any  imaginable  cause  except  the  true 
one.  This  want  has  also  the  property  of  disguising 
from  mankind  not  only  itself,  but  the  most  eligible 
means  of  providing  even  for  the  wants  of  which  they 
are  conscious. 

On  what,  then,  have  mankind  depended,  on  what 
must  they  continue  to  be  dependent,  for  the  removal  of 
their  ignorance  and  of  their  defect  of  culture  ?  Mainly 
on  the  unremitting  exertions  of  the  more  instructed  and 
cultivated,  whether  in  the  position  of  the  government  or 
in  a  private  station,  to  awaken  in  their  minds  a  con- 
sciousness of  this  want,  and  to  facilitate  to  them  the 
means  of  supplying  it.  The  instruments  of  this  work 
are  not  merely  schools  and  colleges,  but  every  means 
by  which  the  people  can  be  reached,  either  through 
their  intellects  or  their  sensibilities, — from  preaching 
and  popular  writing,  to  national  galleries,  theatres,  and 
public  games. 

Here,  then,  is  a  wide  field  of  usefulness  open  for 
foundations ;  and,  in  point  of  fact,  they  have  been 
destined  for  such  purposes  oftener  than  for  any  other. 
We  are  of  opinion  that  such  endowments  are  deserving 
of  encouragement,  where  a  sufficiency  do  not  already 
exist ;  and  that  their  funds  ought  not  to  be  appropriated 
in  another  manner,  as  long  as  any  opening  remains  for 
their  useful  application  in  this. 

A  doctrine  is  indeed  abroad,  and  has  been  sanctioned 
by  many  high  authorities,  among  others  by  Adam 
Smith,  that  endowed  establishments,  for  education  or 
other  public  purposes,  are  a  mere  premium  upon  idle- 


56  CORPORATION   AND   CHURCH   PROPERTY. 

ness  and  inefficiency.  Undoubtedly  they  are  so  when 
it  is  nobody's  business  to  see  that  the  receivers  of  the 
endowment  do  their  duty ;  when  (what  is  more)  every 
attempt  to  regulate,  or  so  much  as  to  know  (further 
than  the  interested  parties  choose  to  make  it  known), 
the  manner  in  which  the  funds  are  employed,  and  the 
nature  and  extent  of  the  service  rendered  in  consider- 
ation of  them,  is  resented  and  exclaimed  against  as  an 
interference  with  the  inviolability  of  private  property. 
That  this  is  the  condition  of  most  of  our  own  endowed 
establishments  is  too  true.*  But,  instead  of  fixing  our 
eyes  exclusively  upon  what  is  nearest  to  us,  let  us  turn 
them  towards  the  endowed  universities  of  France  and 
Germany,  and  mark  if  those  are  places  of  idleness 
and  inefficiency.  Let  us  see  whether,  where  the  endow- 
ment proceeds  from  the  governments  themselves,  and 
where  the  governments  do  not,  as  here,  leave  it  optional 
whether  that  which  is  promised  and  paid  for  shall  or 
shall  not  be  done,  it  be  not  found,  that,  notwithstanding 
the  acknowledged  defects  of  those  governments,  the 
education  given  is  the  best  which  the  age  and  country 
can  supply.  Let  us  even  look  at  home,  and  examine, 
whether,  with  all  the  grievous  abuses  of  the  endowed 
seminaries  of  Great  Britain,  they  are,  after  all,  worse 
than,  or  even  so  bad  as,  almost  all  our  other  places  of 
education?  We  may  ask,  whether  the  desire  to  gain 
as  much  money  with  as  little  labor  as  is  consistent  with 
saving  appearances  be  peculiar  to  the  endowed  teachers  ; 
whether  the  plan  of  nineteen-twentieths  of  our  unen- 
dowed schools  be  not  an  organized  system  of  charla- 
tanerie  for  imposing  upon  the  ignorance  of  parents; 

*  Happily  now  no  longer  so  (1859). 


CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.     57 

whether  parents  do,  in  point  of  fact,  prove  themselves 
as  solicitous,  and  as  well  qualified,  to  judge  rightly 
of  the  merits  of  places  of  education,  as  the  theory  of 
Adam  Smith  supposes ;  whether  the  truth  be  not, 
that,  for  the  most  part,  they  bestow  very  little  thought 
upon  the  matter,  or,  if  they  do,  show  themselves  in 
general  the  ready  dupes  of  the  very  shallowest  artifices  ; 
whether  the  necessity  of  keeping  parents  in  good 
humor  does  not  too  often,  instead  of  rendering  the 
education  better,  render  it  worse ;  the  real  ends  of  in- 
struction being  sacrificed,  not  solely  (as  would  otherwise 
be  the  case)  to  the  ease  of  the  teacher,  but  to  that,  and 
also  to  the  additional  positive  vices  of  clap-trap  and  lip- 
proficiency.  We  may  ask  whether  it  is  not  matter  of 
experience,  that  a  schoolmaster  who  endeavors  really 
to  educate,  instead  of  endeavoring  only  to  seem  to 
educate,  and  laying  himself  out  for  the  suflErages  of 
those  who  never  look  below  the  surface,  and  only  for 
an  instant  at  that,  is  almost  sure,  unless  he  have  the 
genius  and  the  ardor  of  a  Pestalozzi,  to  make  a  losing 
speculation.  Let  us  do  what  we  may,  it  wiU  be  the 
study  of  the  merely  trading  schoolmaster  to  teach  down 
to  the  level  of  the  parents,  be  that  level  high  or  low; 
as  it  is  of  the  trading  author  to  write  down  to  the  level 
of  his  readers.  And,  in  the  one  shape  as  in  the  other, 
it  is  in  all  times  and  in  all  places  indispensable,  that 
enlightened  individuals  and  enlightened  governments 
should,  from  other  motives  than  that  of  pecuniary  gain, 
bestir  themselves  to  provide  (though  by  no  means 
forcibly  to  impose)  that  good  and  wholesome  food  for 
the  wants  of  the  mind    for  which  the  competition  of 


58  CORPORATION   AND   CHURCH   PROPERTT. 

the  mere  trading  market  affords  in  general  so  indifferent 
a  substitute. 

It  may  be  said,  however,  that  where  there  is  a  wise 
srovemment,  and  one  which  has  the  confidence  of  the 
people,  whatever  expense  it  may  be  requisite  either  to 
defray  or  to  advance  for  national  education,  or  any 
other  of  the  purposes  for  which  endowments  exist, 
ought  rather  to  be  furnished  by  the  government,  and 
paid  out  of  the  taxes ;  the  government  being  probably 
a  better  judge  of  good  education  than  an  average  man, 
—  even  an  average  foimder. 

To  this  it  may  be  answered,  that  the  full  benefit  of 
the  superior  wisdom  of  the  government  would  be  ob- 
tained, in  the  case  of  old  foundations,  by  that  discre- 
tionary power  of  modifpng  the  dispositions  of  the 
founder  which  ought  to  be  exerted  by  the  government 
as  often  as  the  purposes  of  the  foundation  require. 
We  certainly  agree,  that  if  the  government  is  so  wise, 
and  if  the  people  rely  so  implicitly  on  its  wisdom,  as 
to  find  money  out  of  the  taxes  for  all  the  purposes  of 
utility  to  which  they  could  have  applied  the  endowment, 
it  is  of  no  consequence  whether  the  endowment  be 
alienated  or  not :  the  alienation  is  merely  nominal. 
But  all  know  how  far  the  fact  at  present  differs  from 
any  such  supposition.  It  is  impossible  to  be  assured 
that  the  people  will  be  willing  to  be  taxed  for  every 
purpose  of  moral  and  intellectual  improvement  for 
which  funds  may  be  required.  But  if  there  were  a  fund 
specially  set  apart,  which  had  never  come  from  the 
people's  pockets  at  all,  which  was  given  to  them  in  trust 
for  the  purpose  of  education,  and  whicli  it  was  con- 
sidered improper  to  divert  to  any  other  employment 


CORPORATION  AXD  CHURCH  PROPERTY.      59 

while  it  could  be  usefully  devoted  to  that,  the  people 
would  probably  be  always  williug  to  have  it  applied  to 
that  purpose.  There  is  such  a  fund,  and  it  consists  of 
the  national  endowments. 

If,  again,  it  be  said,  that,  as  the  people  grow  more 
enlightened,  they  wuU  become  more  able  to  appreciate, 
and  more  willing  to  pay  for,  good  instruction ;  that  the 
competition  of  the  market  will  become  more  and  more 
adequate  to  provide  good  education,  and  endowed  estab- 
lishments will  be  less  and  less  necessary,  —  we  admit  the 
fact.  And  it  might  be  said  with  equal  truth,  that,  as 
the  people  improve,  there  will  be  less  and  less  necessity 
for  penal  laws.  But  penal  laws  are  one  among  the  in- 
dispensable means  of  bringing  about  this  very  improve- 
ment ;  and,  in  like  manner,  if  the  people  ever  become 
sufficiently  enlightened  to  be  able  to  do  without  educa- 
tional endowments,  it  will  be  because  those  endowments 
will  have  been  preserved  and  prized,  and  made  efficient 
for  their  proper  purpose.  It  is  only  by  a  right  use  of 
endowments  that  a  people  can  be  raised  above  the  need 
of  them. 

So  much  with  regard  to  old  endowments,  the  appli- 
cation of  which,  to  the  purpose  for  which  they  were 
destined,  ought  to  be  as  completely  under  the  control 
of  the  government  as  if  the  funds  were  taken  directly 
out  of  the  taxes.  But,  in  addition  to  these  old  endow- 
ments, the  liberty  of  forming  new  ones,  for  education 
and  mental  culture  in  all  shapes,  seems  to  us  of  consider- 
able importance  ;  and  a  limited  number  of  years  should, 
we  think,  be  allowed,  during  which  the  disposition  of 
the  founder  should  undergo  no  alteration. 

We  deem  this  advisable,  simply  because  governments 


60     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

axe  fallible ;  and,  as  they  have  ample  means  both  of 
providing  and  of  recommending  the  education  they  deem 
best,  should  not  be  allowed  to  prevent  other  people 
from  doing  the  same.  No  government  is  entitled  (fur- 
ther than  is  implied  in  the  very  act  of  governing)  to 
make  its  own  opinion  the  measure  of  every  thing  which 
is  useful  and  true.  A  perfect  government  would,  no 
doubt,  be  always  under  the  guidance  of  the  wisest  mem- 
bers of  the  community.  But  no  government  can  unite 
all  the  wisdom  which  is  in  all  the  members  of  the  com- 
munity taken  together ;  much  less  can  a  mere  majority 
in  a  legislative  body.  A  nation  ought  not  to  place  its 
entire  stake  upon  the  wisdom  of  one  man,  or  one  body 
of  men,  and  to  deprive  all  other  intellect  and  virtue  of 
a  fair  field  of  usefulness,  whenever  they  cannot  be  made 
to  square  exactly  with  the  intellect  and  virtue  of  that 
man  or  body.  It  is  the  wisdom  of  a  community,  as 
well  as  of  an  individual,  to  beware  pf  being  one-sided : 
the  more  chances  it  gives  itself,  the  greater  the  proba- 
bility that  some  will  succeed.  A  government,  when 
properly  constituted,  should  be  allowed  the  greatest 
possible  facilities  for  what  itself  deems  good,  but  the 
smallest  for  preventing  the  good  which  may  chance  to 
come  from  elsewhere.  This  will  not  be  disputed  if  the 
government  be  a  monarchy  or  an  aristocracy  :  it  is  quite 
equally  true  when  the  constitution  is  popular.  The  dis- 
approbation of  the  government,  in  that  case,  means  the 
disapprobation  of  the  majority ;  and,  where  the  opinion 
of  the  majority  gives  the  law,  there,  above  all,  it  is 
eminently  the  interest  of  the  majority  that  minorities 
should  have  fau-  play.  Sinister  interest,  indeed,  is  often 
found  in  a  minority  ;  but  so,  it  must  also  be  remembered, 


CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.     61 

is  truth  :  at  its  original  appearance,  it  must  be  so.  All 
improvements,  either  in  opinion  or  practice,  must  be  in 
a  minority  at  first. 

We  deem  it  important  that  individuals  should  have  it 
in  their  power  to  enable  good  schooling,  good  writing, 
good  preaching,  or  any  other  course  of  good  instruc- 
tion, to  be  carried  on  for  a  certain  number  of  years  at 
a  pecuniary  loss.  By  that  time,  if  the  people  are  intel- 
ligent, and  the  government  wisely  constituted,  the  insti- 
tution will  probably  be  capable  of  supporting  itself,  or 
the  government  will  be  willing  to  adopt  all  that  is  good 
in  it  for  the  improvement  of  the  institutions  which  are 
under  the  public  care.  For  that  the  people  can  see 
what  is  for  their  good,  when  it  has  long  been  shown 
them,  is  c(immonly  true;  that  they  can  foresee  it,  sel- 
dom. 

Endowments,  again,  are  a  natural  and  convenient 
mode  of  providing  .for  the  support  of  establishments 
which  are  interesting  only  to  a  peculiar  class,  and  for 
which,  therefore,  it  might  be  improper  to  tax  all  the 
members  of  the  community.  Such,  for  instance,  are 
colleges  for  the  professional  instruction  of  the  clergy  of 
a  sect ;  as  Maynooth,  Manchester,  or  Highbury. 

If,  then,  it  be  in  truth  desirable  that  foundations 
should  exist,  which  we  think  is  clear  from  the  foregoing 
and  many  other  considerations,  it  would  seem  to  follow, 
as  a  natural  consequence,  that  the  appropriation  made 
by  the  founder  should  not  be  set  aside,  save  in  so  far  as 
paramount  reasons  of  utility  require ;  that  his  design 
should  be  no  further  departed  from  than  he  himself 
would  probably  have  approved,  if  he  had  lived  to  the 
present  time,  and  participated  to  a  reasonable  degree  in 


62     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTT. 

its  best  ideas.  If  foundations  deserve  to  be  encouraged, 
it  is  desirable  to  reward  the  liberality  of  the  founder 
by  allowing  to  works  of  usefulness  (though  not  a  per- 
petuity) as  prolonged  a  duration  of  individual  and  dis- 
tinguishable existence  as  circumstances  will  admit. 

But  this  is  not  the  only,  nor  perhaps  the  strongest, 
reason  for  keeping  to  a  certain  extent  in  view,  even 
in  an  alienation  of  endowments,  the  intention  of  the 
founder.  Almost  any  fixed  rule,  consistent  with  insur- 
ing the  employment  of  the  funds  for  some  purpose  of 
real  utility,  is  preferable  to  allowing  financiers  to  count 
upon  them  as  a  resource  applicable  to  all  the  exigencies 
of  the  State  indiscriminately ;  otherwise  they  may  be 
seized  on  to  supply,  not  the  most  permanent  or  essen- 
tial, but  the  most  immediate  and  importunate,  demands  : 
one  year  of  financial  difficulty  might  suffice  to  dissipate 
funds  that  centuries  would  not  replace ;  and  the  time 
for  an  interference  with  foundatigns  would  be  deter- 
mined, not  by  the  necessity  of  a  reform,  but  by  the 
state  of  the  quarter's  revenue.  Nor  would  it  be  right 
to  disregard  the  great  importance  of  the  associations 
which  lead  mankind  to  respect  the  declared  will  of  every 
person  in  the  disposal  of  what  is  justly  his  own.  That 
will  is  surely  not  least  deserving  of  respect  when  it  is 
ordaining  an  act  of  beneficence ;  and  any  deviation 
from  it,  not  called  for  by  high  considerations  of  social 
good,  even  when  not  a  violation  of  property,  runs 
counter  to  a  feeling  so  nearly  allied  to  those  on  which 
the  respect  for  property  is  founded,  that  there  is  scarcely 
a  possibility  of  infringing  the  one  without  shaking  the 
security  of  the  other. 

It  is  no  violation  of  these  salutary  associations   to 


CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.     ()3 

resume  an  endowment,  if  it  be  done  with  the  conscien- 
tious reservation  which  we  have  suggested.  Respect 
for  the  intentions  of  the  founder  is  not  shown  by  a  lit- 
eral adherence  to  his  mere  words,  but  by  an  honest 
attempt  to  give  execution  to  his  real  wishes  ;  not  stick- 
ing superstitiously  to  the  means  which  he  hit  upon  acci- 
dentally, or  because  he  knew  no  better,  but  regarding 
solely  the  end  which  he  sought  to  compass  by  those 
means. 

The  first  duty  of  the  Legislature,  indeed,  is  to  employ 
the  endo^vment  usefully^  and  that  in  a  degree  corre- 
sponding to  the  greatness  of  the  benefit  contemplated 
by  the  donor.  But  it  is  also  of  importance,  that  not 
only  as  great  a  benefit,  but,  as  far  as  possible,  the  same 
kind  of  benefit,  should  be  reaped  by  society  as  that 
which  the  founder  intended.  It  is  incumbent  on  the 
State  to  consider,  not  to  what  purpose  it,  under  the 
temptations  of  the  moment,  would  like  best  to  apply 
the  money ;  but  rather  what,  among  all  objects  of  un- 
questionable utility  which  a  reasonable  person  in  these 
days  would  value  sufficiently  to  give  this  sum  of  money 
for,  is  the  particular  purpose  most  resembling  the  origi- 
nal disposition  of  the  founder. 

Thus  money  assigned  for  purposes  of  education 
should  be  devoted,  by  preference,  to  education ;  the 
kind  and  the  mode  being  altered  as  the  principles  and 
practice  of  education  come  to  be  better  understood. 
Money  left  for  giving  alms  should  certainly  cease  to  be 
expended  in  giving  alms ;  but  it  should  be  applied,  in 
preference  to  the  general  benefit  of  the  poorer  classes,  in 
whatever  manner  might  appear  most  eligible.  The  en- 
dowments of  an  established  church  should  continue  to 


64     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

bear  that  character  as  long  as  it  is  deemed  advisable  that 
the  clero-y  of  a  sect  or  sects  should  be  supported  by  a 
public  provision  of  that  amount :  and,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, as  much  of  these  endovrments  as  is  required 
should  be  sacredly  preserved  for  the  purposes  of  spirit- 
ual culture ;  using  that  expression  in  its  primitive 
meaning,  to  denote  the  culture  of  the  inward  man,  — 
his  moral  and  intellectual  well-being,  as  distinguished 
from  the  mere  supply  of  his  bodily  wants. 

Such,  indeed,  as  has  been  forcibly  maintained  by  Mr. 
Coleridge,  was  the  only  just  conception  of  a  national 
clergy  from  their  first  establishment.  .  To  the  minds  of 
our  ancestors,  they  presented  themselves  not  solely  as 
ministers  for  going  through  the  ceremonial  of  religion, 
nor  even  solely  as  religious  teachers  in  the  narrow 
sense,  but  as  the  lettered  class,  — the  clerici  or  clerks, 

—  who  were  appointed  generally  to  prosecute  all  those 
studies,  and  diffuse  all  those  impressions,  which  consti- 
tuted mental  culture  as  then  understood,  which  fitted 
the  mind  of  man  for  his  condition,  destiny,  and  duty 
as  a  human  being.  In  proportion  as  this  enlarged  con- 
ception of  the  object  of  a  national  church  establishment 
has  been  departed  from,  so  far,  in  the  opinion  of  the  first 
living  defender  of  our  own  establishment,  it  has  been  per- 
verted, both  in  idea  and  in  fact,  from  its  true  nature  and 
ends.  A  national  clerisy,  or  clergy,  as  Mr.  Coleridge 
conceives  it,  would  be  a  grand  institution  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  whole  people ;  not  their  school  education 
merely,  — though  that  would  be  included  in  the  scheme, 

—  but  for  training  and  rearing  them,  by  systematic 
culture  continued  throughout  life,  to  the  highest  perfec- 
tion of  their  mental  and  spiritual  nature. 


COEPORATIOX  AND  CHURCH  PKOPEETY.      65 

The  benefits  of  such  an  institution,  and  how  it  ought 
to  be  constituted  to  be  free  from  the  vices  of  an  estab- 
lished church  as  at  present  understood,  are  questions 
too  extensive  to  be  further  adverted  to  in  this  place. 
We  will  rather  say,  as  being  more  pertinent  to  our  pres- 
ent design,  that  if  endowments  (like  the  church-prop- 
erty) originally  set  apart  for  what  was  then  deemed 
the  highest  spiritual  culture  were  diverted  to  the  pur- 
poses of  the  highest  spu'itual  culture  which  the  intellects 
of  a  subsequent  age  could  devise,  there  would  be  no 
departure  from  the  intentions  of  the  original  owners, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  a  faithful  fulfilment  of  them,  when 
a  literal  and  servile  adherence  to  the  mere  accidents  of 
the  appropriation  would  be  the  surest  means  of  defeat- 
ing its  essentials.  The  perfect  lawfulness  of  such  an 
alienation  as  this  is  explicitly  laid  down  by  the  eminent 
writer  to  whom  we  have  referred.  It  is  part  of  his 
doctrine,  that  the  State  is  at  liberty  to  withdraw  the 
endowment  from  its  existing  possessors,  whenever  any 
body  of  persons  can  be  found,  whether  ministers  of  reli- 
gion or  not,  by  whom  the  ends  of  the  establishment,  as 
he  understands  them,  are  likely  to  be  more  perfectly 
fulfilled.  It  is  the  more  important  to  place  this  admis- 
sion upon  record,  as  the  most  able  and  accomplished  of 
the  rising  defenders  of  the  Church  of  England  have 
evidently  issued  from  Mr.  Coleridge's  school,  and  have 
taken  their  weapons  chiefly  from  his  storehouse. 

If,  however,  we  seize  upon  the  endowments  of  the 
Church,  not  for  the  civilization  and  cultivation  of  the 
minds  of  our  people,  but  to  pay  oflT  a  small  fraction  of 
the  national  debt,  or  to  supply  a  temporary  financial 
exigency,  we  shall  not  only  squander  for  the  benefit 


(36     CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

of  a  single  generation  the  inheritance  of  posterity,  we 
fhall  not  only  purchase  an  imperceptible  good  by  sacri- 
ficing a  most  important  one,  but,  by  disregarding  entirely 
the  intentions  of  the  original  owners,  we  shall  do  our 
l)est  to  create  a  habit  of  paltering  with  the  sacredness 
of  a  trust.  It  matters  not  that  the  property  has  now 
become  res  nullius,  and  is  therefore,  properly  speaking, 
our  own.  It  is  not  of  our  earning :  others  gave  it  to 
us,  and  for  purposes  which  it  may  be  a  duty  to  set 
aside,  but  which  cannot  honestly  be  sacrificed  to  a  con- 
venience. We  have  not  the  slightest  reason  to  believe, 
that  if  the  owners  were  alive,  and  still  masters  of  their 
property,  they  would  give  it  to  us  to  be  blown  away  in 
gunpowder,  or  to  save  a  few  years'  house  and  window 
tax. 

On  a  pressing  exigency,  as  to  avert  a  national  bank- 
ruptcy or  repel  a  foreign  invasion,  the  whole  or  any 
part  of  the  endowment  might  be  borrowed  ;  as,  in  such 
a  case,  might  any  other  property,  public  or  private,  but 
subject  to  the  promptest  possible  repayment. 

If  any  surplus  remains,  after  as  much  has  been  done 
for  cultivating  the  minds  of  the  people  as  it  is  thought 
advisable  to  do  without  making  them  pay  for  it,  the 
residue  may  be  unobjectionably  applied  to  the  ordinary 
purposes  of  government ;  though  it  should  even  then 
be  considered  as  a  fund  liable  to  be  drawn  upon  to  its 
full  extent,  if  hereafter  required,  for  purposes  of  spirit- 
ual culture. 

A  few  words  must  be  added  on  the  kinds  of  founda- 
tion which  ought  not  to  be  permitted ;  after  which  we 
shall  conclude. 

No  endowment  should  be  suffered  to  be  made,  or 


CORPORATION  AND  CHURCH  PROPERTY.     67 

funds  to  be  legally  appropriated,  for  any  purpose  which 
is  actually  unlawful.  If  the  law  has  forbidden  any  act, 
has  constituted  it  an  offence  or  injury,  every  mode  of 
committing  the  act,  not  some  particular  modes  only, 
ought  to  be  prohibited.  But  if  the  purpose  for  which 
the  foundation  is  constituted  be  not  illegal,  but  only,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  Legislature,  inexpedient,  this  is  by  no 
means  a  sufficient  reason  for  denying  to  the  appropria- 
tion the  protection  of  the  law.  The  grounds  of  this 
opinion  may  be  sufficiently  collected  from  the  preceding 
observations. 

The  only  other  restriction  which  we  would  impose 
upon  the  authors  of  foundations  is,  that  the  endow- 
ment shall  not  consist  of  land.  The  evils  of  alio  wing 
land  to  pass  into  mortmain  are  universally  acknowl- 
edged ;  and  the  trustees,  besides,  ought  to  have  no 
concern  with  the  money  intrusted  to  them,  except  to 
apply  it  to  its  purposes.  They  may  desire  landed  prop- 
erty as  a  source  of  power,  which  is  a  reason  the  more 
for  refusing  it  to  them  ;  but,  as  a  source  of  income,  it  is 
not  suited  to  their  position.  They  should  only  have  to 
receive  an  annuity,  and  that  in  the  simplest  and  least 
troublesome  manner ;  not  to  realize  a  rental  from  a 
multitude  of  small  tenants.  Their  time  and  attention 
ought  not  to  be  divided  between  their  proper  business 
and  the  duties  of  a  landlord,  or  the  superintendence  and 
management  of  a  landed  estate. 


68 


THE   CURRENCY  JUGGLE* 


AUi*  friends  of  "the  movement;"  all  persons,  be  they 
ministers,  members  of  Parliament,  or  public  writers, 
who  look  for  the  safety  and  well-being  of  England,  not 
through  the  extinction,  but  through  the  further  progress, 
of  pohtical  reform,  —  commit,  in  our  opinion,  an  egre- 
gious blunder,  if  they  devote  themselves  chiefly  to 
setting  forth  what  innovations  ought  not  to  be  made. 
Once  open  a  door,  and  mischief  may  come  in  as  well 
as  0*0  out :  who  doubts  it  ?  But  our  fears  are  not  on 
that  side :  improvement,  and  not  conservation,  is  the 
prize  to  be  striven  for  just  now.  The  tide  of  improve- 
ment having  once  begun  to  rise,  we  know  that  froth 
and  straws,  and  levities  of  all  kinds,  will  be  floated  in 
multitudes  up  the  stream ;  but  it  is  not  the  business  of 
reformers  to  watch  for  their  appearance,  and  break 
each  successive  bubble  the  moment  it  shows  itself  on 
the  surface.  These  may  be  left  to  burst  of  themselves, 
or  to  be  swept  away  by  the  efforts  of  such  as  feel  them- 
selves called  upon  by  their  duty  to  make  that  their 
occupation.  Be  it  ours  to  find  fit  work  for  the  new 
instrument  of  government :  it  is  enough  that  our  silence 
testifies  against  the  unfit.  No  one  can  suflSce  for  aU 
things  ;  and  the  time  is  yet  far  distant,  when  a  radical 
reformer  can,  without  deserting  a  higher  trust,  allow 
*  Tait's  Magazine,  January,  1833. 


THE   CDIIRENCY  JUGGLE.  69 

himself  to  assume,  in  the  main,  the  garb  and  attitude 
of  a  conservative. 

There  are,  however,  cases  in  which  this  wholesome 
rule  of  conduct  must  be  departed  from,  and  the  evil 
incurred  of  a  conflict  between  reformers  and  reformers 
in  the  face  of  the  common  enemy.  Purposes  may  be 
proclaimed  by  part  of  the  multitudinous  body  of  pro- 
fessed radicals,  which,  for  the  credit  of  the  common 
cause,  it  may  be  imperative  upon  their  fellow-radicals 
to  disavow,  —  purposes  such  as  cannot  even  continue  to 
be  publicly  broached  (not  being  as  publicly  protested 
against)  vdthout  serious  mischief.  In  this  light  we 
look  upon  all  schemes  for  the  confiscation  of  private 
property,  in  any  shape,  or  under  any  pretext ;  and 
upon  none  more  than  the  gigantic  plan  of  confiscation 
which  at  present  finds  some  advocates,  —  a  depreciation 
of  the  currency. 

In  substance,  this  is  merely  a  roundabout  (and  very 
inconvenient)  method  of  cutting  down  all  debts  to  a 
fraction.  Considering  it  in  that  light,  it  is  not  wonder- 
ful that  fraudulent  debtors  should  be  its  eager  parti- 
sans ;  but  what  recommends  it  to  them  should  have 
been  enough  to  render  it  odious  to  all  well-meaning, 
even  if  puzzle-headed,  persons.  That  men  who  are 
not  knaves  in  their  private  dealings  should  understand 
what  the  word  "  depreciation  "  means,  and  yet  support  it, 
speaks  but  ill  for  the  existing  state  of  morality  on  such 
subjects.  It  is  something  new  in  a  civilized  country. 
Several  times,  indeed,  since  paper-credit  existed,  gov- 
ernments or  public  bodies  have  got  into  their  hands  the 
power  of  issuing  a  paper-currency,  without  the  restraint 
of  convertibility,    or   any   limitation    of   the    amount. 


70  THE   CUREENCr  JUGGLE. 

The  most  memorable  cases  are  those  of  Law's  Missis- 
sippi scheme,  the  Assignats,  and  the  Bank  Restriction  in 
1797.  On  these  various  occasions,  a  depreciation  did, 
in  fact,  take  place  ;  but  the  intention  was  not  professed 
of  producing  one,  nor  were  its  authors  in  the  slightest 
deerree  aware  that  such  would  be  the  effect.  The 
important  truth,  that  currency  is  lowered  {cceteris 
paribus)  in  value  by  being  augmented  in  quantity, 
was  kno^vn  solely  to  speculative  philosophers,  to  Locke 
and  Hume.  The  practicals  had  never  heard  of  it ;  or, 
if  they  had,  disdained  it  as  visionary  theory.  Not  an 
idea  was  entertained  that  a  paper-money,  which  rested 
on  good  security,  —  which  represented,  as  the  phrase 
was,  real  wealth, — could  ever  become  depreciated  by 
the  mere  amount  of  the  issues. 

But  now  this  is  understood  and  reckoned  upon,  and 
is  the  very  foundation  of  the  scheme.  Everybody, 
with  a  few  ridiculous  exceptions,  now  knows,  that 
increasing  the  issues  of  inconvertible  paper  lowers  its 
value,  and  thereby  takes  from  all  who  have  currency 
in  their  possession,  or  who  are  entitled  to  receive  any 
fixed  sum,  an  indefinite  aliquot  part  of  their  property 
or  income ;  making  a  present  of  the  amoimt  to  the 
issuers  of  the  currency,  and  to  the  persons  by  whom 
the  fixed  sums  are  payable.  This  is  seen  as  clearly  as 
dayhght ;  and  do  men,  therefore,  recoil  from  the  idea? 
No  :  they  coolly  propose  that  the  thing  should  be  done  ; 
the  novoR  tahulm  issued ;  the  transfer  to  the  debtor  of 
the  lawful  property  of  the  creditor,  and  to  the  banker 
of  part  of  the  property  of  every  one  who  has  money 
in  his  purse,  dehberately  and  knowingly  accomplished. 
And  this  is  seriously  entertained  as  a  proposition  sub 


THE   CUREENCY   JUGGLE.  71 

judice;    quite  as  fit  to  be  discussed,  and  as  likely,  d 
priori,  to  be  found  worthy  of  adoption,  as  any  other. 

At  the  head  of  the  depreciation  party  are  the  two 
Messrs.  Attwood,  Matthias  and  Thomas, — the  first  a 
Tory,  and  nominee  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle :  his 
brother,  the  chairman  of  the  Birmingham  Union  ;  one 
who,  as  a  man  of  action,  willing  and  able  to  stand  in 
the  breach,  the  organizer  and  leader  of  our  late  vic- 
torious struggle,  has  deserved  well  of  his  country.  But 
the  ability  required  for  leading  a  congregated  multitude 
to  victory,  whether  in  the  war  of  politics  or  in  that  of 
battles,  is  one  thing :  the  capacity  to  make  laws  for  the 
commerce  of  a  great  nation,  or  even  to  interpret  the 
commonest  mercantile  phenomena,  is  another.  If  any 
one  still  doubts  this  truth,  he  may  learn  it  from  Mr. 
Thomas  Attwood's  evidence  before  the  bank  commit- 
tee. 

JVIr.  Attwood  has  there  given  vent  to  speculations  on 
currency,  which  prove,  that,  on  a  topic  to  which  he  has 
paid  more  attention  than  to  any  other,  he  is  yet  far 
beneath  even  his  recent  antagonist,  Mr.  Cobbett.  Mr. 
Cobbett,  in  truth,  sees  as  clearly  as  any  one,  that  to 
enact  that  sixpence  should  hereafter  be  called  a  shilling 
would  be  of  no  use  except  to  the  person  who  owed  a 
shilling  before,  and  is  now  allowed  to  pay  it  with  six- 
pence ;  and,  it  being  no  part  of  Mr.  Cobbett's  object 
to  produce  any  gratuitous  evil,  he  has  common  sense 
enough  to  see  that  it  would  be  absurd,  for  the  sake 
of  operating  upon  existing  contracts,  to  render  all  future 
ones  impracticable  except  on  the  footing  of  gambling 
transactions,  by  making  it  impossible  for  any  one  to 
divine  whether  the  shOling  he  undertakes  to  pay  will 


72  THE   CURRENCY  JUGGLE. 

be  worth  a  penny  or  a  pound  at  the  time  of  payment. 
Mr.  Cobbett,  therefore,  is  for  calling  a  spade  a  spade  ; 
and  cancelling,  avowedly,  a  part,  or  the  whole,  as  it 
may  happen,  of  all  existing  debts  ;  permitting  the  pound 
sterling  to  be  worth  twenty  shillings,  as  before.  Future 
creditors  would  thus  have  the  benefit  of  knowing  what 
they  bargained  for ;  though  they  might,  indeed,  feel  a 
slight  doubt  whether  it  would  be  paid.  In  this  scheme 
there  is  only  knavery ;  no  folly,  save  that  of  expecting 
that  a  great  act  of  national  knavery  should  be  a  nation- 
al benefit.  Mr.  Attwood,  on  the  other  hand,  is  for  the 
robbery  too  :  but  then  it  has  not  so  much  the  character 
of  a  robbery  in  his  eyes  ;  for,  if  it  be  done  in  the  way  of 
a  depreciated  paper-currency,  such  a  flood  of  wealth,  he 
imagines,  will  be  disengaged  in  the  process,  that  the 
robber  and  the  robbed,  the  lion  and  the  lamb,  will  lie 
down  lovingly  together,  and  wallow  in  riches.  At  the 
bottom  of  the  ftmdholder's  pocket,  Mr.  Attwood  expects 
to  find  the  philosopher's  stone.  As  great  a  man  as  Mr. 
Attwood,  the  King  of  Brobdingnag,  declared  it  to  be 
his  creed,  that  the  man  who  calls  into  existence  two 
blades  of  grass  where  only  one  grew  before,  deserves 
better  of  his  country  than  the  whole  tribe  of  statesmen 
and  warriors.  Mr.  Attwood  has  the  same  exalted 
opinion  of  the  man  who  calls  two  pieces  of  paper  into 
existence  where  only  one  piece  existed  before. 

But  first  we  must  say  a  few  words  respecting  the 
robbery  itself :  we  will  revert  afterwards  to  the  accom- 
panying   uggle. 

There  has  been,  and  is,  one  sophism,  which  has  en- 
abled many  well-intentioned  persons  to  disguise  from 
their  own  consciences  the  real  character  of  the  contem- 


THE    CURRENCY   JUGGLE.  73 

plated  fraud  upon  creditors.  This  sophism  has  some 
superficial  plausibility.  More  than  half  (it  is  argued) 
of  the  national  debt,  as  well  as  a  great  multitude  of 
private  engagements,  were  contracted  in  a  depreciated 
currency  :  if,  therefore,  the  interest  or  principal  be  paid, 
without  abatement,  in  money  of  the  ancient  standard, 
we  are  paying  to  public  and  private  creditors  more  than 
they  lent. 

To  this  fallacy  there  are  as  many  as  three  or  four 
sufficient  refutations,  every  one  standing  on  its  own 
independent  ground.  But  the  most  conclusive  and 
crushing  of  them  all  is  not  unfrequently  overlooked ; 
such  is  the  shortness  of  men's  memories,  even  about 
the  events  of  their  own  time.  Many  who  abhor  the 
"  equitable  adjustment "  join  in  condemning  the  restora- 
tion of  the  currency  in  1819  ;  concede  that  Peel's  bill 
plundered  all  debtors  for  the  benefit  of  creditors ;  but 
urge,  that  the  present  fundholders  and  other  creditors 
are,  in  great  part,  not  the  same  persons  who  reaped  the 
undue  benefit ;  and  that  to  claim  damages  from  one  set 
of  persons,  because  another  set  have  been  overpaid, 
is  no  reparation,  but  a  repetition  of  injustice.  This  is, 
indeed,  true  and  irresistible,  even  though  it  stood  alone  : 
there  needs  no  other  argument ;  yet  there  is  another 
and  a  still  more  powerful  one. 

The  I'estoration  of  the  ancient  standard,  and  the  pay- 
ment, in  the  restored  currency,  of  the  interest  of  a  debt 
contracted  in  a  depreciated  one,  was  no  injustice,  but  the 
simple  performance  of  a  plighted  compact.  All  debts 
contracted  during  the  bank  restriction  were  contracted 
under  as  full  an  assurance  as  the  faith  of  a  nation  could 
give,  that  cash  payments  were  only  temporarily  sus- 


74  THE   CURRENCY  JUGGLE. 

pended.  At  first,  the  suspension  was  to  last  a  few  weeks  ; 
next,  a  few  months  ;  then,  at  farthest,  a  few  years. 
Nobody  even  insinuated  a  suggestion  that  it  should  be 
perj)etual ;  or  that,  when  cash  payments  were  resumed, 
less  than  a  guinea  should  be  given  at  the  bank  for  a 
pound  note  and  a  shilling.  And  to  quiet  the  doubts  and 
fears  which  would  else  have  arisen,  and  which  would  have 
rendered  it  impossible  for  any  minister  to  raise  another 
loan  except  at  the  most  ruinous  interest,  it  was  made 
the  law  of  the  land,  solemnly  sanctioned  by  Parlia- 
ment, that  six  months  after  the  peace,  if  not  before, 
cash  payments  should  be  resumed.  This,  therefore, 
was  distinctly  one  of  the  conditions  of  all  the  loans 
made  during  that  period.  It  is  a  condition  which  has 
not  been  fulfilled.  Instead  of  six  months,  more  than 
as  many  years  intervened  between  the  peace  and  the 
resumption  of  cash  payments.  The  nation,  therefore, 
has  not  kept  faith  with  the  fundholder.  Instead  of 
having  overpaid  him,  we  have  cheated  him.  Instead  of 
making  him  a  present  (as  is  alleged)  of  a  percentage 
equal  to  the  enhancement  of  the  currency,  we  continued, 
on  the  contrary,  to  pay  his  interest  in  depreciated  paper 
several  years  after  we  were  bound  by  contract  to  pay  it 
in  cash.  And  be  it  remarked,  that  the  depreciation 
was  at  its  highest  during  a  part  of  that  very  period.  If, 
therefore,  there  is  to  be  a  great  day  of  national  atone- 
ment for  gone-by  wrongs,  the  fundholders,  instead  of 
ha^dng  any  thing  to  pay  back,  should  be  directed  to  send 
in  theii-  bill  for  the  principal  and  interest  of  what  they 
were  defrauded  of  during  the  first  years  of  the  peace. 
Instead  of  this,  it  is  proposed,  that,  having  already 
defrauded  them  of  part  of  a  benefit  which  was  in  their 


THE    CURRENCY  JUGGLE.  75 

bond,  and  for  which  they  gave  an  equivalent,  we  should 
now  force  them  to  make  restitution  of  the  remainder. 

That  they  gave  an  equivalent  is  manifest.  The 
depreciation  did  not  attain  its  maximum  until  the  last 
few  years  of  the  war :  indeed,  it  never  amounted  to 
any  thing  considerable  till  then.  It  was  during  those 
years,  also,  that  the  largest  sums  were  borrowed  by  the 
government.  At  that  time,  the  effects  of  the  bank 
restriction  had  begun  to  be  well  understood.  The 
writings  of  Mr.  Henry  Thornton,  Lord  King,  Mr. 
Ricardo,  Mr.  Huskisson,  Mr.  Blake,  &c.,  and  the 
report  of  the  bullion  committee,  had  diffused  a  very 
general  conviction,  that  the  currency  was  in  fact  depre- 
ciated, and  that  the  bank  directors  acted  on  principles 
of  which  that  evU  was  the  natural  consequence.  Does 
anybody  imagine  that  the  loans  of  those  years  could 
have  been  raised,  except  on  terms  never  before  heard  of 
under  a  civilized  government,  if  there  had  been  no 
engagement  to  pay  the  interest  or  the  principal  in 
money  of  any  fixed  standard,  but  it  had  been  avowed, 
that,  to  whatever  point  the  arbitrary  issues  of  the  bank 
might  depress  the  value  of  the  pound  sterling,  there  it 
would  be  suffered  to  remain  ? 

What  avails  it,  then,  to  cavil  about  paying  more 
than  was  borrowed?  Everybody  who  borrows  at  in- 
terest, and  keeps  his  engagement,  pays  more  than  he 
borrowed.  The  question  is  not.  Have  we  paid  more 
than  we  borrowed  ?  but,  Have  we  paid  more  than  we 
contracted  to  pay?  And  the  answer  is.  We  have  paid 
less.  The  fundholder,  as  the  weaker  party,  has 
pocketed  the  injury :  he  only  asks  to  be  spared  an 
additional  and  far  greater  one.     We  covenanted  to  pay 


7G  THE    CURRENCY  JUGGLE. 

in  a  metallic  standard  :  we  therefore  are  bound  to  do  it. 
To  deliberate  on  such  a  question  is  as  if  a  private  per- 
son were  to  deliberate  whether  he  should  pick  a  pocket. 

So  much  for  the  substance  of  the  fraud.  There  is, 
however,  no  political  crime  so  bad  in  itself  but  what 
may  be  made  still  worse  by  the  manner  of  doing  it. 
To  rob  all  creditors,  pubHc  and  private,  is  bad  enough, 
in  all  conscience;  but,  for  the  sake  of  robbing  existing 
creditors,  to  give  to  a  set  of  bankers  the  power  of 
taxing  the  community  to  an  unlimited  amount  at  their 
sole  pleasure,  by  pouring  forth  paper  which  could  only 
get  into  circulation  by  lowering  the  value  of  all  the 
paper  already  issued,  —  what  would  this  be  but  to  erect 
a  company  of  public  plunderers,  and  place  all  our  for- 
tunes in  their  hands,  merely  because  they  offer  to  lend  us 
our  own  money,  and  call  the  twofold  operation  "  afford- 
ino;  facilities  to  trade  "  ?  It  were  better  worth  our  while 
to  settle  a  Blenheim  or  a  Strathfieldsaye  upon  every 
banker  in  England.  Pecuniary  transactions  would 
shortly  come  to  an  end  :  in  a  few  months,  we  should  be 
in  a  state  of  barter.  No  one  in  his  senses  would  take 
money  in  exchange  for  any  thing,  except  he  were  sure 
of  being  able  to  lay  it  out  before  the  next  day.  Every 
one  would  begin  to  estimate  his  possessions,  not  by 
pounds  sterling,  but  by  sheep  and  oxen,  as  in  the 
patriarchal  times. 

i\Ir.  Attwood  opines,  that  the  multiplication  of  the 
circulating  medium,  and  the  consequent  diminution 
of  its  value,  do  not  merely  diminish  the  pressure  of 
taxes  and  debts,  and  other  fixed  charges,  but  give 
employment  to  labor,  and  that  to  an  indefinite  ex- 
tent.    If  we  could  work  miracles,  we  would  not  be 


THE   CURRENCY  JUGGLE.  77 

niggardly  of  them.  Possessing  the  power  of  calling 
all  the  laborers  of  Great  Britain  into  high  wages  and 
full  employment  by  no  more  complicated  a  piece  of 
machinery  than  an  engraver's  plate,  a  man  would  be 
much  to  blame  if  he  failed  for  want  of  goino;  far 
enough.  Mr.  Attwood,  accordingly,  is  for  increasing 
the  issues,  until,  with  his  paper  loaves  and  fishes,  he  has 
fed  the  whole  multitude,  so  that  no^  a  creature  goes 
away  hungry.  Such  a  depreciation  as  would  cause 
wheat  to  average  ten  shillings  the  bushel,  he  thinks, 
would  suffice ;  but  if,  on  trial,  any  laborer  should 
declare  that  he  still  'had  an  appetite,  Mr.  Attwood 
proiFers  to  serve  up  another  dish,  and  then  another,  up 
to  the  desired  point  of  satiety.  If  a  population  thus 
satisfactorily  fed  should,  under  such  ample  encourage- 
ment, double  or  treble  in  its  numbers,  all  that  would  be 
necessary,  in  this  gentleman's  opinion,  is  to  depreciate 
the  currency  so  much  the  more. 

It  is  not  that  Mr.  Attwood  exactly  thinks  that  a  hun- 
gry people  can  be  literally  fed  upon  his  bits  of  paper. 
His  doctrine  is,  that  paper-money  is  not  capital,  but 
brings  capital  into  fuller  employment.  A  large  portion 
of  the  national  capital,  especially  of  that  part  which 
consists  of  buildings  and  machinery,  is  now,  he  affirms, 
lying  idle,  in  default  of  a  market  for  its  productions ; 
those  various  productions  being,  as  he  admits,  the 
natural  market  for  one  another,  but  being  unable  to 
exchange  for  each  other,  for  want  of  a  more  plentiful 
medium  of  exchange,  just  as  wheels  will  not  turn  with 
a  spare  allowance  of  oil.  It  was  suggested  to  him,  by 
some  member  of  the  committee,  that  a  small  nominal 
amount  of  currency  will  suffice  to  exchange  as  many 


78  THE   CURRENCY  JUGGLE. 

commodities  as  a  larger  one,  saving  that  it  will  do  it 
at  lower  prices ;  which,  however,  when  common  to  all 
commodities,  are  exactly  as  good  to  the  sellers  as  high 
prices,  except  that  these  last  may  enable  them  to  put 
off  their  creditors  with  a  smaller  real  value.  Mr. 
Attwood  could  not  help  admitting  this  ;  but  it  failed  to 
produce  any  impression  upon  him  :  he  could  not  per- 
ceive that  high  prices  are  in  themselves  no  benefit ;  he 
could  not  get  it  out  of  his  head  that  high  prices  occa- 
sion "increased  consumption,"  "increased  demand," 
and  thereby  give  a  stimulus  to  production.  As  if  it 
were  any  increase  of  demand  for  oread  to  have  two  bits 
of  paper  to  give  for  a  loaf  instead  of  one.  As  if  being 
able  to  s^ll  a  pair  of  shoes  for  two  rags  instead  of  one, 
when  each  rag  is  only  worth  half  as  much,  were  any 
additional  inducement  to  the  production  of  shoes. 

^\nienever  we  meet  with  any  notion  more  than  com- 
monly absurd,  we  expect  to  find  that  it  is  derived  from 
what  is  miscalled  "practical  experience ;"  namely,  from 
something  which  has  been  seen,  heard,  and  misunder- 
stood. Such  is  the  case  with  Mr.  Attwood's  delusion. 
What  has  imposed  upon  him  is,  as  usual,  what  he  would 
term  "a  fact."  If  prices  could  be  kept  as  high  as  in 
1825,  all  would  be  well;  for,  in  1825,  not  one  well- 
conducted  laborer  in  Great  Britain  was  unemployed. 
The  first  liberty  we  shall  take  is  that  of  disbelieving 
the  "fact."  In  its  very  nature,  it  is  one  which  neither 
Mr.  Attwood,  nor  any  one,  can  personally  know  to  be 
true ;  and  his  means  of  accm-ate  knowledge  are  proba- 
bly confined  to  the  great  manufacturing  and  exporting 
town  which  he  personally  inhabits.  Thus  much,  how- 
ever, we  grant,  that  the  buUdings  and  machinery  he 


THE    CURRENCY  JUGGLE.  79 

speaks  of  were  not  lying  idle  in  1825,  but  were  in  full 
operation  :  many  of  them,  indeed,  were  erected  during 
that  frantic  period ;  which  is  partly  the  cause  of  their 
lying  idle  now.  But  why  was  all  the  capital  of  the 
country  in  such  unwonted  activity  in  1825  ?  Because 
the  whole  mercantile  public  was  in  a  state  of  insane 
delusion,  in  its  very  nature  temporary.  From  the  im- 
possibility of  exactly  adjusting  the  operations  of  the 
producer  to  the  wants  of  the  consumer,  it  always  hap- 
pens that  some  articles  are  more  or  less  in  deficiency, 
and  others  in  excess.  To  rectify  these  derangements, 
the  healthy  working  of  the  social  economy  requires, 
that,  in  some  channels,  capital  should  be  in  full,  while 
in  others  it  should  be  in  slack,  employment.  But,  in 
1825,  it  was  imagined  that  all  articles,  compared  with 
the  demand  for  them,  were  in  a  state  of  deficiency. 
An  unusual  extension  of  the  spirit  of  speculation, 
accompanied  rather  than  caused  by  a  great  increase  of 
paper-credit,  had  produced  a  rise  of  prices,  which,  not 
being  supposed  to  be  connected  with  a  depreciation  of 
the  currency,  each  merchant  or  manufacturer  considered 
to  arise  from  an  increase  of  the  effectual  demand  for  his 
particular  article,  and  fancied  there  was  a  ready  and 
permanent  market  for  almost  any  quantity  of  that  arti- 
cle which  he  could  produce.  Mr.  A tt wood's  error  is 
that  of  supposing  that  a  depreciation  of  the  currency 
really  increases  the  demand  for  all  articles,  and  conse- 
quently their  production,  because,  under  some  circum- 
stances, it  may  create  a.  false  opinion  of  an  increase  of 
demand ;  which  false  opinion  leads,  as  the  reality  would 
do,  to  an  increase  of  production,  followed,  however,  by 
a  fatal  revulsion  as  soon  as  the  delusion  ceases.     The 


80  THE    CURRENCY  JUGGLE. 

revulsion  in  1825  was  not  caused,  as  Mr.  Attwood 
fancies,  by  a  contraction  of  the  currency :  the  only 
cause  of  the  real  ruin  was  the  imaginary  prosperity. 
The  contraction  of  the  currency  was  the  consequence, 
not  the  cause,  of  the  revulsion.  So  many  merchants 
and  bankers  having  failed  in  their  speculations,  so 
many,  therefore,  being  unable  to  meet  their  engage- 
ments,, their  paper  became  worthless,  and  discredited  all 
other  paper.  An  issue  of  inconvertible  bank-notes 
miffht  have  enabled  these  debtors  to  cheat  their  cred- 
itors :  but  it  woidd  not  have  opened  a  market  for  one 
more  loaf  of  bread,  or  one  more  yard  of  cloth ;  because 
what  makes  a  demand  for  commodities  is  commodities, 
and  not  bits  of  paper. 

It  is  no  slight  additional  motive  to  rejoice  in  our 
narrow  escape  from  marching  to  parliamentary  reform 
through  a  violent  revolution,  when  we  think  of  the 
influence  which  would  in  that  event  have  been  exercised 
over  Great  Britain,  for  good  or  for  ill,  by  men  of 
whose  opinions  what  precedes   is  a  faithful  picture. 

We  have  no  di'ead  of  them  at  present,  because, 
together  with  the  disapprobation  of  all  instructed  per- 
sons, they  have  to  encounter  a  strong  popular  prejudice 
against  paper-money  of  every  kind.  The  real  misfor- 
tune would  be,  if  they  shoidd  waive  their  currency 
juggle,  and  coalesce  with  the  clearer-sighted  and  more 
numerous  tribe  of  political  swindlers  who  attack  public 
and  private  debts  directly  and  avowedly. 

But,  even  thus,  we  do  not  fear  that  they  should  suc- 
ceed. There  are  enough  of  honest  people  in  England 
to  be  too  many  for  all  the  knaves ;  and  it  is  only  for 
want  of  discussion  that  these  schemes  find  any  favorers 


THE    CURRENCY  JUGGLE.  81 

among  sincere  men.  The  mischief,  and  it  is  not  incon- 
siderable, is,  that  such  things  should  be  talked  of,  or 
thought  of;  that  the  time  and  talents  which  ought  to 
be  employed  in  making  good  laws  and  redressing  real 
wrongs  should  be  taken  up  in  counselling  or  in  avert- 
ing a  national  iniquity,  to  the  injury  of  all  good  hopes, 
but  most  to  the  damage  and  discredit  of  the  popular 
cause,  which  is  almost  undistinguishably  identified  in 
the  minds  of  many  excellent  but  ill-informed  and  timid 
people  with  the  supremacy  of  brute  force  over  right, 
and  a  perpetually  impending  spoliation  of  every  thing 
which  one  person  has  and  another  desires. 


82 


A  FEW  OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  FRENCH 
REVOLUTION* 


History  is  interesting  under  a  twofold  aspect :  it  has  a 
scientific  interest,  and  a  moral  or  biographic  interest, — 
a  scientific,  inasmuch  as  it  exhibits  the  general  laws  of 
the  moral  universe  acting  in  circumstances  of  com- 
plexity, and  enables  us  to  trace  the  connection  between 
great  effects  and  their  causes  ;  a  moral  or  biographic 
interest,  inasmuch  as  it  displays  the  characters  and  lives 
of  human  beings,  and  calls  upon  us,  according  to  their 
deservings  or  to  their  fortunes,  for  sympathy,  admira- 
tion, or  censure. 

Without  entering  at  present,  more  than  to  the  extent 
of  a  few  words,  into  the  scientific  aspect  of  the  history 
of  the  French  Revolution,  or  stopping  to  define  the 
place  which  we  would  assign  to  it  as  an  event  in  uni- 
versal history,  we  need  not  fear  to  declare  utterly 
unqualified  for  estimating  the  French  Revolution  any 
one  who  looks  upon  it  as  arising  from  causes  peculiarly 
French,  or  otherwise  than  as  one  turbulent  passage  in 
a  progressive  transformation  embracing  the  whole  hu- 
man race.  All  political  revolutions  not  effected  by 
foreign  conquest  originate  in  moral  revolutions.     The 

*  From  a  review  of  the  first  two  volumes  of  Alison's  Historj'  of  Eu- 
rope, Monthly  Repository,  August,  1833. 


THE   FRENCH  EEVOtUTION.  83 

subversion  of  established  institutions  is  merely  one 
consequence  of  the  previous  subversion  of  established 
opinions.  The  political  revolutions  of  the  last  three 
centuries  were  but  a  few  outward  manifestations  of  a 
moral  revolution,  which  dates  from  the  great  breaking- 
loose  of  the  human  faculties  commonly  described  as  the 
"revival  of  letters,"  and  of  which  the  main  instrument 
and  agent  was  the  invention  of  printing.  How  much 
of  the  course  of  that  moral  revolution  yet  remains  to 
be  run,  or  how  many  political  revolutions  it  will  yet 
generate  before  it  be  exhausted,  no  one  can  foretell. 
But  it  must  be  the  shallowest  view  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution which  can  now  consider  it  as  any  thing  but  a 
mere  incident  in  a  great  change  in  man  himself,  —  in 
his  beliefs,  in  his  principles  of  conduct,  and  therefore 
in  the  outward  arrangements  of  society ;  a  change  so 
far  from  being  completed,  that  it  ^s  not  yet  clear,  even 
to  the  more  advanced  spirits,  to  what  ultimate  goal  it  is 
tending. 

Now,  if  this  view  be  just  (which  we  must  be  content 
for  the  present  to  assume) ,  surely  for  an  English  histo- 
rian, writing  at  this  particular  time  concerning  the 
French  Revolution,  there  was  something  pressing  for 
consideration,  of  greater  interest  and  importance  than 
the  degree  of  praise  or  blame  due  to  the  few  individuals, 
who,  with  more  or  less  consciousness  of  what  they  were 
about,  happened  to  be  personally  implicated  in  that 
strife  of  the  elements. 

But  also,  if,  feeling  his  incapacity  for  treating  history 
from  the  scientific  point  of  view,  an  author  thinks  fit  to 
confine  himself  to  the  moral  aspect,  surely  some  less 
commonplace  moral  result,    some  more  valuable    and 


84  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION. 

more  striking  practical  lesson,  might  admit  of  being 
dra^^'n  from  this  extraordinary  passage  of  history,  than 
merely  this,  that  men  should  beware  how  they  begin  a 
political  convulsion,  because  they  never  can  tell  how  or 
when  it  will  end  ;  which  happens  to  be  the  one  solitary 
general  inference,  the  entire  aggregate  of  the  practical 
wisdom,  deduced  therefrom  in  Mr.  Alison's  book. 

Of  such  stuff  are  ordinary  people's  moralities  com- 
posed. Be  good,  be  wise,  always  do  right,  take  heed 
what  you  do  ;  for  you  know  not  what  may  come  of  it. 
Does  Mr.  Alison,  or  any  one,  really  believe  that  any 
human  thing,  from  the  fall  of  man  to  the  last  bank- 
ruptcy, ever  went  wrong  for  want  of  such  maxims  as 
these  ? 

A  political  convulsion  is  a  fearful  thing :  granted. 
Nobody  can  be  assured  beforehand  what  course  it  will 
take  :  we  grant  that  too.  What  then  ?  No  one  ought 
ever  to  do  any  thing  which  has  any  tendency  to  bring 
on  a  convulsion  :  is  that  the  principle  ?  But  there 
never  was  an  attempt  made  to  reform  any  abuse  in 
Church  or  State,  never  any  denunciation  uttered,  or 
mention  made  of  any  political  or  social  evil,  which  had 
not  some  such  tendency.  AYhatever  excites  dissatis- 
faction with  any  one  of  the  aiTangements  of  society 
brings  the  danger  of  a  forcible  subversion  of  the  entire 
fabric  so  much  the  nearer.  Does  it  follow  that  there 
ought  to  be  no  censure  of  any  thing  which  exists  ?  Or 
is  this  abstinence,  perad venture,  to  be  observed  only 
when  the  danger  is  considerable  ?  But  that  is  when- 
ever the  evil  complained  of  is  considerable ;  because, 
the  greater  the  evil,  the  stronger  is  the  desire  excited  to 
be  freed  from  it,  and  because  the  greatest  evils  are 


THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION.  85 

always  those  which  it  is  most  difficult  to  get  rid  of  bj 
ordinary  means.  It  would  follow,  then,  that  mankind 
are  at  liberty  to  throw  off  small  evils,  but  not  great 
ones  ;  that  the  most  deeply  seated  and  fatal  diseases  of 
the  social  system  are  those  which  ought  to  be  left  for 
ever  without  remedy. 

Men  are  not  to  make  it  the  sole  object  of  their  politi- 
cal lives  to  avoid  a  revolution,  no  more  than  of  their 
natural  lives  to  avoid  death.  They  are  to  take  reason- 
able care  to  avert  both  those  contingencies  when  there 
is  a  present  danger,  but  not  to  forbear  the  pursuit  of 
any  worthy  object. for  fear  of  a  mere  possibility. 

Unquestionably  it  is  possible  to  do  mischief  by  striv- 
ing for  a  larger  measure  of  political  reform  than  the 
national  mind  is  ripe  for  ;  and  so  forcing  on  prematurely 
a  struggle  between  elements,  which,  by  a  more  gradual 
progress,  might  have  been  brought  to  harmonize.  And 
every  honest  and  considerate  person,  before  he  engages 
in  the  career  of  a  political  reformer,  will  inquire 
whether  the  moral  state  and  intellectual  culture  of  the 
people  are  such  as  to  render  any  great  improvement  in 
the  management  of  public  affairs  possible.  But  he  will 
inquire,  too,  whether  the  people  are  likely  ever  to  be 
made  better,  morally  or  intellectually,  without  a  pre- 
vious change  in  the  government.  If  not,  it  may  still  be 
his  duty  to  strive  for  such  a  change,  at  whatever  risk. 

What  decision  a  perfectly  wise  man,  at  the  opening 
of  the  French  Revolution,  would  have  come  to  upon 
these  several  points,  he  who  knows  most  will  be  most 
slow  to  pronounce.  By  the  revolution,  substantial 
good  has  been  effected  of  immense  value,  at  the  cost  of 
immediate  evil  of  the  most  tremendous  kind.     But  it  is 


86  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION. 

impossible,  with  all  the  light  which  has  been,  or  prob- 
ably ever  will  be,  obtained  on  the  subject,  to  do  more 
than  conjecture  whether  France  could  have  purchased 
improvement  cheaper ;  whether  any  course  which  could 
have  averted  the  revolution  would  not  have  done  so 
by  arresting  all  improvement,  and  barbarizing  down  the 
people  of  France  into  the  condition  of  Russian  boors. 

A  revolution,  which  is  so  ugly  a  thing,  certainly 
cannot  be  a  very  formidable  thing,  if  all  is  true  that 
conservative  writers  say  of  it ;  for,  according  to  them, 
it  has  always  depended  upon  the  will  of  some  small 
number  of  persons  whether  there  should  be  a  revolu- 
tion or  not.  They  invariably  begin  by  assuming,  that 
great  and  decisive  immediate  improvements,  with  a  cer- 
tainty of  subsequent  and  rapid  progress,  and  the  ulti- 
mate attainment  of  all  practicable  good,  may  be  had 
by  peaceable  means  at  the  option  of  the  leading  reform- 
ers ;  and  that  to  this  they  voluntarily  prefer  civil  war 
and  massacre,  for  the  sake  of  marching  somewhat  more 
directly  and  rapidly  towards  their  ultimate  ends.  Hav- 
ing thus  made  out  a  revolution  to  be  so  mere  a  baga- 
telle, that,  except  by  the  extreme  of  knavery  or  folly, 
it  may  always  be  kept  at  a  distance,  there  is  little 
difficulty  in  proving  all  revolutionary  leaders  knaves  or 
fools.  But,  unhappily,  theirs  is  no  such  enviable  posi- 
tion :  a  far  other  alternative  is  commonly  offered  to 
them.  We  will  hazard  the  assertion,  that  there  has 
scarcely  ever  yet  happened  a  political  convulsion,  origi- 
nating in  the  desire  of  reform,  where  the  choice  did 
not,  in  the  full  persuasion  of  every  person  concerned, 
lie  between  all  and  nothing ;  where  the  actors  in  the 
revolution  had  not  thoroughly  made  up  their  minds, 


THE    FRENCH    REVOLUTION.  87 

that,  without  a  revolution,  the  enemies  of  all  reform 
would  have  the  entire  ascendency ;  and  that  not  only- 
there  would  be  no  present  improvement,  but  the  door 
would,  for  the  future,  be  shut  against  every  endeavor 
towards  it. 

Unquestionably,  such  was  the  conviction  of  those 
who  took  part  in  the  French  Revolution  during  its 
earlier  stages.  They  did  not  choose  the  way  of  blood 
and  violence  in  preference  to  the  way  of  peace  and  dis- 
cussion. Theirs  was  the  cause  of  law  and  order.  The 
States- General  at  Versailles  were  a  body  legally  as- 
sembled, legally  and  constitutionally  sovereign  of  the 
country,  and  had  every  right,  which  law  and  opinion 
could  bestow  upon  them,  to  do  all  that  they  did.  But, 
as  soon  as  they  did  any  thing  disagreeable  to  the  king's 
courtiers  (at  that  time  they  had  not  even  begun  to  make 
any  alterations  in  the  fundamental  Institutions  of  the 
country),  the  king  and  his  advisers  took  steps  for 
appealing  to  the  bayonet.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  the 
adverse  force  of  an  armed  people  stood  forth  In  defence 
of  the  highest  constituted  authority,  —  the  legislature 
of  their  country,  —  menaced  with  Illegal  violence.  The 
Bastille  fell ;  the  popular  party  became  the  stronger ; 
and  success,  which  so  often  is  said  to  be  a  justification, 
has  here  proved  the  reverse  :  men  who  would  have  been 
ranked  with  Hampden  and  Sidney,  if  they  had  quietly 
waited  to  have  their  throats  cut,  passed  for  odious  mon- 
sters because  they  have  been  victorious. 

We  have  not  now  time  nor  space  to  discuss  the  quan- 
tum of  the  guilt  which  attaches,  not  to  the  authors  of 
the  revolution,  but  to  the  various  subsequent  revolution- 
ary governments,   for   the   crimes   of  the   revolution. 


88  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 

Much  was  done  which  could  not  have  been  done  except 
by  bad  men.  But  whoever  examines  faithfully  and 
diligently  the  records  of  those  times,  whoever  can  con- 
ceive the  circumstances  and  look  into  the  minds  even 
of  the  men  who  planned  and  perpetrated  those  enormi- 
ties, will  be  the  more  fully  convinced,  the  more  he  con- 
siders the  facts,  that  all  which  was  done  had  one  sole 
object.  That  object  was,  according  to  the  phraseology 
of  the  time,  to  save  the  revolution ;  to  save  it,  no  mat- 
ter by  what  means  ;  to  defend  it  against  its  irreconcila- 
ble enemies,  within  and  without ;  to  prevent  the  undoing 
of  the  whole  work,  the  restoration  of  all  which  had 
been  demolished,  and  the  extermination  of  all  who  had 
been  active  in  demolishing  ;  to  keep  down  the  royalists, 
and  drive  back  the  foreign  invaders ;  as  the  means  to 
these  ends,  to  erect  all  France  into  a  camp,  subject  the 
whole  French  people  to  the  obligations  and  the  arbitrary 
discipline  of  a  besieged  city ;  and  to  inflict  death,  or 
suffer  it,  with  equal  readiness,  —  death  or  any  other  evil, 
—  for  the  sake  of  succeeding  in  the  object. 

But  nothing  of  all  this  is  dreamed  of  in  Mr.  Alison's 
philosophy :  he  knows  not  enough,  either  of  his  pro- 
fessed subject,  or  of  the  universal  subject,  the  nature  of 
man,  to  have  got  even  thus  far,  to  have  made  this  first 
step  towards  understanding  what  the  French  Revolution 
was.  In  this  he  is  without  excuse ;  for,  had  he  been 
even  moderately  read  in  the  French  literature  subsequent 
to  the  revolution,  he  would  have  found  this  view  of  the 
details  of  its  history  familiar  to  every  writer  and  to 
every  reader. 


89 


THOUGHTS  ON  POETRY  AND  ITS  VARIETIES.* 


I. 

It  has  often  been  asked,  What  is  Poetry?  And  many 
and  various  are  the  answers  which  have  been  returned. 
The  vulgarest  of  all  —  one  with  which  no  person  pos- 
sessed of  the  faculties  to  wlaich  poetry  addresses  itself 
can  ever  have  been  satisfied  —  is  that  which  confounds 
poetry  -with  metrical  composition ;  yet  to  this  wretched 
mockery  of  a  definition  many  have  been  led  back  by 
the  failure  of  all  their  attempts  to  find  any  other  that 
would  distinguish  what  they  have  been  accustomed  to 
call  poetry  from  much  which  they  have  known  only 
under  other  names. 

That,  however,  the  word  "poetry"  imports  some- \ 
thing  quite  peculiar  in  its  nature ;  something  which 
may  exist  in  what  is  called  prose  as  well  as  in  verse ; 
something  which  does  not  even  require  the  instrument 
of  words,  but  can  speak  through  the  other  audible 
symbols  called  musical  sounds,  and  even  through  the 
visible  ones  which  are  the  language  of  sculpture,  paint- 
ing, and  architecture,  —  all  this,  we  believe,  is  and  must 
be  felt,  though  perhaps  indistinctly,  by  all  upon  whom 
poetry  in  any  of  its  shapes  produces  any  impression 
beyond  that  of  tickling  the  ear.     The  distinction  be-'' 

*   Monthly  Repositon',  Januarj' and  October,  1833 


90  POETRY  AND   ITS    VARIETIES. 

tween  poetry  and  what  is  not  poetry,  whether  explained 
or  not,  is  felt  to  be  fundamental ;  and,  where  every  one 
feels  a  difference ,  a  difference  there  must  be.  All  other 
appearances  may  be  fallacious  ;  but  the  appearance  of  a 
difference  is  a  real  difference.  Appearances  too,  like 
other  things,  must  have  a  cause ;  and  that  which  can 
cause  any  thing,  even  an  illusion,  must  be  a  reality. 
And  hence,  while  a  half-philosophy  disdains  the  clas- 
sifications and  distinctions  indicated  by  popular  lan- 
guage, philosophy  carried  to  its  highest  point  frames 
new  ones,  but  rarely  sets  aside  the  old,  content  with 
correcting  and  regularizing  them.  It  cuts  fresh  chan- 
nels for  thought,  but  does  not  fill  up  such  as  it  finds 
ready-made :  it  traces,  on  the  contrary,  more  deeply, 
broadly,  and  distinctly,  those  into  which  the  current 
has  spontaneously  flowed. 

Let  us  then  attempt,  in  the  way  of  modest  inquiry, 
not  to  coerce  and  confine  Xature  within  the  bounds  of 
an  arbitrary  definition,  but  rather  to  find  the  boundaries 
which  she  herself  has  set,  and  erect  a  barrier  round 
them ;  not  calling  mankind  to  account  for  having  mis- 
applied the  word  "  poetry,"  but  attempting  to  clear  up 
the  conception  which  they  already  attach  to  it,  and  to 
bring  forward  as  a  distinct  principle  that  which,  as  a 
vague  feeling,  has  really  guided  them  in  their  employ- 
ment of  the  term. 

The  object  of  poetry  is  confessedly  to  act  upon  the 
emotions ;  —  and  therein  is  poetry  suflficiently  distin- 
guished from  what  Wordsworth  affirms  to  be  its  logical 
opposite ;  namely,  not  prose,  but  matter  of  fact,  or 
\  science.  The  one  addresses  itself  to  the  belief;  the 
other,  to  the  feelings.     The  one  does  its  work  by  con- 


POETRY   AND   ITS    VARIETIES.  91 

vincing  or  persuading ;  the  other,  by  moving.  The  one 
acts  by  presenting  a  proposition  to  the  understanding ; 
the  other,  by  oiFering  interesting  objects  of  contempla- 
tion to  the  sensibilities. 

This,  however,  leaves  us  very  far  from  a  definition 
of  poetry.  This  distinguishes  it  from  one  thing ;  but 
we  are  bound  to  distinguish  it  from  every  thing.  To 
bring  thoughts  or  images  before  the  mind,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  acting  upon  the  emotions,  does  not  belong  to 
poetry  alone.  It  is  equally  the  province  (for  example) 
of  the  novelist :  and  yet  the  faculty  of  the  poet  and 
that  of  the  novelist  are  as  distinct  as  any  other  two 
faculties ;  as  the  faculties  of  the  novelist  and  of  the 
orator,  or  of  the  poet  and  the  metaphysician.  The 
two  characters  may  be  united,  as  characters  the  most 
disparate  may ;  but  they  have  no  natural  connection. 

]\Iany  of  the  greatest  poems  are  in  the  form  of  ficti- 
tious narratives  ;  and,  in  almost  all  good  serious  fictions, 
there  Is  true  poetry.  But  there  is  a  radical  distinction  ^ 
betAveen  the  interest  felt  in  a  story  as  such,  and  the 
interest  excited  by  poetry ;  for  the  one  is  derived  from 
incident,  the  other  from  the  representation  of  feeling. 
In  one,(the  source  of  the  emotion  excited  Is  the  exhi- 
bition  of  a  state  or  states  of  human  sensibility;  in  the 
other,  of  a  series  of  states  of  mere  outward  circum- 
stances. Now,  all  minds  are  capable  of  being  affected 
more  or  less  by  representations  of  the  latter  kind,  and 
all,  or  almost  all,  by  those  of  the  former ;  yet  the  two 
sources  of  interest  correspond  to  two  distinct  and  (as 
respects  their  greatest  development)  mutually  exclusive 
characters  of  mind. 

At  what  age  is  the  passion  for  a  story,  for  almost 


92  POETRY   AXD   ITS   VARIETIES. 

any  kind  of  story,  merely  as  a  story,  the  most  intense? 
In  childhood.  But  that  also  is  the  age  at  which  poet- 
ry, even  of  the  shiiplest  description,  is  least  relished 
and  least  understood ;  because  the  feelings  with  which 
it  is  especially  conversant  are  yet  undeveloped,  and,  not 
having  been  even  in  the  slightest  degree  experienced, 
cannot  be  sympathized  with.  In  what  stage  of  the 
progress  of  society,  again,  is  story-telling  most  valued, 
and  the  story-teller  in  greatest  request  and  honor?  In 
a  rude  state  like  that  of  the  Tartars  and  Arabs  at  this 
day,  and  of  almost  all  nations  in  the  earliest  ages.  But, 
in  this  state  of  society,  there  is  little  poetry  except  bal- 
lads, which  are  mostly  narrative, — that  is,  essentially 
stories,  —  and  derive  their  principal  interest  from  the 
incidents.  Considered  as  poetry,  they  are  of  the  lowest 
and  most  elementary  kind :  the  feelings  depicted,  or 
rather  indicated,  are  the  siibplest  our  nature  has ;  such 
joys  and  griefs  as  the  immediate  pressure  of  some  out- 
ward event  excites  in  rude  minds,  which  live  wholly  im- 
mersed in  outward  things,  and  have  never,  either  from 
choice  or  a  force  they  could  not  resist,  turned  them- 
selves to  the  contemplation  of  the  world  within.  Pass- 
ing now  from  childhood,  and  from  the  childhood  of 
society,  to  the  grown-up  men  and  women  of  this  most 
grown-up  and  unchild-like  age,  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  greatest  depth  and  elevation  are  commonly  those 
which  take  greatest  delight  in  poetry :  the  shallowest 
and  emptiest,  on  the  contrary,  are,  at  all  events,  not 
those  least  addicted  to  novel-reading.  This  accords, 
too,  with  all  analogous  experience  of  human  nature. 
The  sort  of  persons  whom  not  merely  in  books,  but  in 
their  lives,  we  find  perpetually  engaged  in  hunting  for 


L 


POETRY  AND   ITS   VARIETIES.  93 

excitement  from  without,  are  invariably  those  who  do 
not  possess,  either  in  the  vigor  of  their  intellectual 
powers  or  in  the  depth  of  their  sensibilities,  that  which 
would  enable  them  to  find  ample  excitement  nearer 
home.  The  most  idle  and  frivolous  persons  take  a 
natural  delight  in  fictitious  narrative  :  the  excitement  it 
affords  is  of  the  kind  which  comes  from  without.  Such 
persons  are  rarely  lovers  of  poetry,  though  they  may 
fancy  themselves  so  because  they  relish  novels  in  verse. 
But  poetry,  which  is  the  delineation  of  the  deeper  ano^, 
more  secret  workings  of  human  emotion,  is  interesting 
only  to  those  to  whom  it  recalls  what  they  have  felt,  or 
whose  imagination  it  stirs  up  to  conceive  what  they 
could  feel,  or  what  they  might  have  been  able  to  feel,  / 
had  their  outward  circumstances  been  different.  .  / 

Poetry,  when  it  is  really  such,  is  truth ;  and  fiction  \ 
also,  if  it  is  good  for  any  thing,  is  truth  :  but  they  are 
different  truths.  The  truth  of  poetry  is  to  paint  the 
human  soul  truly :  the  truth  of  fiction  is  to  give  a  true 
picture  of  life.  The  two  kinds  of  knowledge  are  differ- 
ent, and  come  by  different  ways,  —  come  mostly  to  , 
different  persons.  Great  poets  are  often  proverbially^,-/ 
ignorant  of  life.  What  they  know  has  come  by  obser- 
vation of  themselves  :  they  have  found  within  them, 
one  highly  delicate  and  sensitive  specimen  of  human 
nature,  on  which  the  laws  of  emotion  are  written  in 
large  characters,  such  as  can  be  read  off  without  much 
study.  Other  knowledge  of  mankind,  such  as  comes 
to  men  of  the  world  by  outward  experience,  is  not  in- 
dispensable to  them  as  poets  :  but,  to  the  novelist,  such 
knoAvledge  is  all  in  all ;  he  has  to  describe  outward 
things,  not  the  inward  man ;    actions  and  events,  not 


\ 


94  POETRY  Am)   ITS   VARIETIES. 

feelings ;  and  it  will  not  do  for  him  to  be  numbered 
among  those,  who,  as  Madame  Roland  said  of  Brissot, 
know  man,  but  not  me?i. 

All  this  is  no  bar  to  the  possibihty  of  combining 
both  elements,  poetry  and  narrative  or  incident,  in  the 
same  work,  and  calling  it  either  a  novel  or  a  poem ; 
but  so  may  red  and  white  combine  on  the  same  human 
features  or  on  the  same  canvas.  There  is  one  order  of 
composition  which  requires  the  union  of  poetry  and  in- 
cident, each  in  its  highest  kind,  —  the  dramatic.  Even 
there,  the  two  elements  are  perfectly  distinguishable,  and 
may  exist  of  unequal  quality  and  in  the  most  various 
proportion.  The  incidents  of  a  dramatic  poem  may  be 
scanty  and  ineffective,  though  the  delineation  of  pas- 
sion and  character  may  be  of  the  highest  order,  as  in 
Goethe's  admirable  "  Torquato  Tasso  ;  "  or,  again,  the 
story  as  a  mere  story  may  be  well  got  up  for  effect,  as 
is  the  case  with  some  of  the  most  trashy  productions 
of  the  Minerva  press  :  it  may  even  be,  what  those  are 
not,  a  coherent  and  probable  series  of  events,  though 
there  be  scarcely  a  feeling  exhibited  which  is  not  repre- 
sented falsely,  or  in  a  manner  absolutely  commonplace. 
The  combination  of  the  two  excellences  is  what  renders 
Shakespeare  so  generally  acceptable,  —  each  sort  of 
readers  finding  in  him  what  is  suitable  to  their  faculties. 
To  the  many,  he  is  great  as  a  story-teller ;  to  the  few,  as 
a  poet. 

In  limiting  poetry  to  the  delineation  of  states  of  feel- 
ing, and  denying  the  name  where  nothing  is  delineated 
but  outward  objects,  we  may  be  thought  to  have  done 
what  we  promised  to  avoid, — to  have  not  found,  but 
made,  a  definition  in  opposition  to  the  usage  of  Ian- 


POETRY   AND   ITS    VARIETIES.  95 

gauge,  since  it  is  established  by  common  consent  that 
there  is  a  poetry  called  descriptive.  We  deny  the 
charge.  Description  is  not  poetry  because  there  is 
descriptive  poetry,  no  more  than  science  is  poetry  be- 
cause there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  didactic  poem.  But  an 
object  which  admits  of  being  described,  or  a  truth 
Avhich  may  fill  a  place  in  a  scientific  treatise,  may  also 
furnish  an  occasion  for  the  generation  of  poetry,  which 
we  thereupon  choose  to  call  descriptive  or  didactic. 
The  poetry  is  not  in  the  object  itself,  nor  in  the  scien- 
tific truth  itself,  but  in  the  state  of  mind  in  which  the 
one  and  the  other  may  be  contemplated.  The  mere  ) 
delineation  of  the  dimensions  and  colors  of  extej-nal 
objects  is  not  poetry,  no  more  than  a  geometrical 
ground-plan  of  St.  Peter's  or  Westminster  Abbey  is 
painting.  Descriptive  poetry  consists,  no  doubt,  in\ 
description,  but  in  description  of  things  as  they  appear, 
not  as  they  are ;  and  it  paints  them,  not  in  their  bare 
and  natural  lineaments,  but  seen  through  the  medium 
and  arrayed  in  the  colors  of  the  imagination  set  in 
action  by  the  feelings.  If  a  poet  describes  a  lion,  he 
does  not  describe  him  as  a  naturalist  would,  nor  even  as  a 
traveller  would,  who  was  intent  upon  stating  the  truth, 
the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  He  de- 
scribes him  by  imagery,  that  is,  by  suggesting  the  most 
striking  likenesses  and  contrasts  which  might  occur  to 
a  mind  contemplating  a  lion,  in  the  state  of  awe,  won- 
der, or  terror,  which  the  spectacle  naturally  excites,  or 
is,  on  the  occasion,  supposed  to  excite.  Now,  this  is 
describing  the  lion  professedly,  but  the  state  of  excite- 
ment of  the  spectator  really.  The  lion  may  be  described 
falsely  or  with  exaggeration,  and  the  poetry  be  all  the 


96  POETRY   AND   ITS   VARIETIES. 

better  :  but,  if  the  human  emotion  be  not  paintedjvith 
scnij)ulous  truth,  the  poetry  is  bad  poetry;  i.e.,  is  not 
poetry  at  all,  but  a  failure. 

Thus  far,  our  progress  towards  a  clear  view  of  the 
essentials  of  poetry  has  brought  us  very  close  to  the 
last  two  attempts  at  a  definition  of  poetry  which  we 
happen  to  have  seen  in  print,  both  of  them  by  poets, 
and  men  of  genius.  The  one  is  by  Ebenezer  Elliott, 
the  author  of  "  Corn-law  Rhymes,"  and  other  poems 
of  still  greater  merit.  "Poetry,"  says  he,  "is  impas- 
sioned truth."  The  other  is  by  a  writer  in  "Black- 
wood's Magazine,"  and  comes,  we  think,  still  nearer 
the  mark.  He  defines  poetry,  "  man's  thoughts  tinged., 
by  his  feelings."  There  is  in  either  definition  a  near  ap- 
proximation to  what  we  are  in  search  of.  Every  truth 
which  a  human  being  can  enunciate,  every  thought, 
even  every  outward  impression,  which  can  enter  into 
his  consciousness,  may  become  poetry,  when  shown 
through  any  impassioned  medium  ;  when  invested  with 
the  coloring  of  joy,  or  grief,  or  pity,  or  affection,  or 
admiration,  or  reverence,  or  awe,  or  even  hatred  or 
terror ;  and,  unless  so  colored,  nothing,  be  it  as  interest- 
ing as  it  may,  is  poetry.  But  both  these  definitions 
fail   to   discriminate   between    poetry   and    eloquence. 

/  Eloquence,  as  well  as  poetry,  is  impassioned  truth ; 
eloquence,  as  well  as  poetry,  is  thoughts  colored  by  the 
feelings.     Yet  common  apprehension  and  philosophic 

te^  criticism  alike  recoOTiize  a  distinction  between  the  two  : 
there  is  much  that  every  one  would  call  eloquence, 
which  no  one  w^ould  think  of  classing  as  poetry.  A 
question  will  sometimes  arise,  whether  some  particular 
aiithor  is  a  poet ;  and  those  who  maintain  the  negative 


POETRY   AOT)   ITS   VARIETIES.  97 

commonly  allow,  that,  though  not  a  poet,  he  is  a  highly 
eloquent  writer.  The  distinction  between  poetry  and 
eloquence  appears  to  us  to  be  equally  fundamental  with 
the  distinction  between  poetry  and  narrative,  or  between 
poetry  and  description,  while  it  is  still  farther  from 
having  been  satisfactorily  cleared  up  than  either  of  the 
others. 

Poetry  and  eloquence  are  both  alike  the  expression  \ 
or  utterance  of  feeling  :  but,  if  we  may  be  excused  the 
antithesis,  we  should  say  that  eloquence  is  heard;  po- 
etry is  ofe?'heard.  Eloquence  supposes  an  audience. 
The  peculiarity  of  poetry  appears  to  us  to  lie  in  the 
poet's  utter  unconsciousness  of  a  listener.  Poetry  isV'^ 
feelino;  confessino;  itself  to  itself  in  moments  of  soli- 
tude,  and  embodying  itself  in  symbols  which  are  the 
nearest  possible  representations  of  the  feeling  in  the 
exact  shape  in  which  it  exists  in  the  poet's  mind. 
Eloquence  is  feeling  pouring  itself  out  to  other  minds, 
courting  their  sympathy,  or  endeavoring  to  influence 
their  belief,  or  move  them  to  passion  or  to  action.   . 

All  poetry  is  of  the  nature  of  soliloquy.  It  may  be 
said  that  poetry  which  is  printed  on  hot-pressed  paper, 
and  sold  at  a  bookseller's  shop,  is  a  soliloquy  in  full 
dress  and  on  the  stage.  It  is  so  ;  but  there  is  nothing 
absurd  in  the  idea  of  such  a  mode  of  soliloquizing. 
What  we  have  said  to  ourselves  we  may  tell  to  others 
afterwards ;  what  we  have  said  or  done  in  solitude  we 
may  voluntarily  reproduce  when  we  know  that  other 
eyes  are  upon  us.  But  no  trace  of  consciousness  that  ] 
any  eyes  are  upon  us  must  be  visible  in  the  work  itself.  / 
The  actor  knows  that  there  is  an  audience  present ;  but, 
if  he  act  as  though  he  knew  it,  he  acts  ill.     A  poet 


98  POETRY   AND   ITS   VARIETIES. 

may  write  poetry,  not  only  with  the  intention  of  print- 
ing it,  but  for  the  express  purpose  of  being  paid  for  it. 
That  it  should  he  poetry,  being  written  under  such 
influences,  is  less  probable,  not,  however,  impossible ; 
but  no  otherwise  possible  than  if  he  can  succeed  in 
excluding  from  his  work  every  vestige  of  such  lookings- 
forth  into  the  outwai'd  and  e very-day  world,  and  can 
express  his  emotions  exactly  as  he  has  felt  them  in  soli- 
tude, or  as  he  is  conscious  that  he  should  feel  them, 
though  they  were  to  remain  for  ever  unuttered,  or  (at 
the  lowest)  as  he  knows  that  others  feel  them  in  similar 
circumstances  of  solitude.  But  when  he  turns  round, 
and  addresses  himself  to  another  person  ;  when  the  act 
of  utterance  is  not  itself  the  end,  but  a  means  to  an 
end, — \dz.,  by  the  feelings  he  liimself  expresses,  to  work 
upon  the  feelings,  or  upon  the  belief  or  the  will  of 
another ;  when  the  expression  of  his  emotions,  or  of  his 
thoughts  tinged  by  his  emotions,  is  tinged  also  by  that 
purpose,  by  that  desire  of  making  an  impression  upon 
another  mind, — then  it  ceases  to  be  poetry,  and  be- 
comes eloquence. 

Poetry,  accordingly,  is  the  natural  fruit  of  soHtude 
and  meditation ;    eloquence,   of  intercourse   with   the 

/  world.  The  persons  who  have  most  feeling  of  their 
own,  if  intellectual  culture  has  given  them  a  language 
in  which  to  express  it,  have  the  highest  faculty  of  poet- 
ry :   those  who  best  understand  the  feelings  of  others 

\^^are  the  most  eloquent.  The  persons  and  the  nations 
who  commonly  excel  in  poetry  are  those  whose  charac- 
ter and  tastes  render  them  least  dependent  upon  the 
applause  or  sympathy  or  concurrence  of  the  world  in 
general.    Those  to  whom  that  applause,  that  sympathy, 


POETET  AND   ITS   VARIETIES.  99 

that  concurrence,  are  most  necessary,  generally  excel 
most  in  eloquence.  And  hence,  perhaps,  the  French, 
who  are  the  least  poetical  of  all  great  and  intellectual 
nations,  are  among  the  most  eloqjient ;  the  French 
also  being  the  most  sociable,  the  vainest,  and  the  least 
self-dependent. 

If  the  above  be,  as  we  believe,  the  true  theory  of  the 
distinction  commonly  admitted  between  eloquence  and 
poetry,  or  even  though  it  be  not  so,  yet  if,  as  we  can- 
not doubt,  the  distinction  above  stated  be  a  real  hond- 
Jide  distinction,  it  will  be  found  to  hold,  not  merely  in 
the  language  of  words,  but  in  all  other  language,  and 
to  intersect  the  whole  domain  of  art. 

Take,  for  example,  music.  We  shall  find  in  that  art, 
so  peculiarly  the  expression  of  passion,  two  perfectly 
distinct  styles,  —  one  of  which  may  be  called  the  poet- 
ry, the  other  the  oratory,  of  music.  This  difference, 
being  seized,  would  put  an  end  to  much  musical  secta- 
rianism. There  has  been  much  contention  whether  the 
music  of  the  modern  Italian  school,  that  of  Rossini 
and  his  successors,  be  impassioned  or  not.  Without 
doubt,  the  passion  it  expresses  is  not  the  musing,  med- 
itative tenderness  or  pathos  or  grief  of  Mozart  or 
Beethoven  ;  yet  it  is  passion,  but  garrulous  passion,  — 
the  passion  which  pours  itself  into  other  ears,  and 
therein  the  better  calculated  for  dramatic  effect,  having 
a  natural  adaptation  for  dialogue.  Mozart  also  is  great 
in  musical  oratory  ;  but  his  most  touching  compositions 
are  in  the  opposite  style,  —  that  of  soliloquy.  Who 
can  imagine  "  Dove  sono "  heard  ?  We  imagine  it 
overheard. 

Purely  pathetic  music  commonly  partakes  of  solilo- 


100  POETRY  AXD   ITS   VARIETIES. 

quy.  The  soul  is  absorbed  in  its  distress  ;  and,  though 
there  may  be  bystanders,  it  is  not  thinking  of  them. 
T\Tien  the  mind  is  looking  witliin,  and  not  without,  its 
state  does  not  often  or  rapidly  vary ;  and  hence  the 
even,  uninterrupted  flow,  approaching  almost  to  mo- 
notony, which  a  good  reader  or  a  good  singer  will  give 
to  words  or  music  of  a  pensive  or  melancholy  cast. 
But  grief,  taking  the  form  of  a  prayer  or  of  a  com- 
plaint, becomes  oratorical :  no  longer  low  and  even  and 
subdued,  it  assumes  a  more  emphatic  rhythm,  a  more 
rapidly  returning  accent ;  instead  of  a  few  slow,  equal 
notes,  following  one  after  another  at  regular  intervals, 
it  crowds  note  upon  note,  and  often  assumes  a  hurry 
and  bustle  like  joy.  Those  who  are  familiar  with  some 
of  the  best  of  Rossini's  serious  compositions,  such  as 
the  air  "Tu  che  i  miseri  conforti,"  in  the  opera  of 
"  Tancredi,"  or  the  duet  "  Ebben  per  mia  memoria,"  in 
"La  Gazza  Ladra,"  will  at  once  understand  and  feel 
our  meaning.  Both  are  highly  tragic  and  passionate  : 
the  passion  of  both  is  that  of  oratory,  not  poetry.  The 
like  may  be  said  of  that  most  moving  invocation  in 
Beethoven's  "Fidelio,"  — 

"  Komm,  HofFnung,  lass  das  letzte  Stem 
Der  Miide  nicht  erbleichen,"  — 

in  which  Madame  Schroder  Devrient  exhibited  such 
consummate  powers  of  pathetic  expression.  How  dif- 
ferent from  Winter's  beautiful  "Paga  fui,"  the  very  soul 
of  melancholy  exhaling  itself  in  soKtude !  fuller  of 
meaning,  and  therefore  more  profoundly  poetical,  than 
the  words  for  which  it  was  composed ;  for  it  seems  to 
express,  not  simple  melancholy,  but  the  melancholy  of 
remorse. 


POETRY  AND   ITS   VAEIETIES.  101 

If  from  vocal  music  we  now  pass  to  instrumental, 
we  may  have  a  specimen  of  musical  oratory  in  any  fine 
military  symphony  or  march ;  while  the  poetry  of  music    \ 
seems  to  have  attained  its  consummation  in  Beethoven's      ^ 
"  Overture  to  Egmont,"  so  wonderful  in  its  mixed  ex-      ^ 
pression  of  grandeur  and  melancholy. 

In  the  arts  which  speak  to  the  eye,  the  same  distinc- 
tions will  be  found  to  hold,  not  only  between  poetry 
and  oratory,  but  between  poetry,  oratory,  narrative,  and 
simple  imitation  or  description. 

Pure  description  is  exemplified  in  a  mere  portrait  or 
a  mere  landscape, — productions  of  art,  it  is  true,  but 
of  the  mechanical  rather  than  of  the  fine  arts ;  being 
works  of  simple  imitation,  not  creation.  We  say,  a 
mere  portrait  or  a  mere  landscape  ;  because  it  is  possible 
for  a  portrait  or  a  landscape,  without  ceasing  to  be  such, 
to  be  also  a  picture,  like  Turner's  landscapes,  and  the 
great  portraits  by  Titian  or  Vandyke. 

Whatever  in  painting  or  sculpture  expresses  human  \ 
feeling,  —  or  character,  which  is  only  a  certain  state  of 
feeling  grown  habitual, — maybe  called,  according  to 
circumstances,  the  poetry  or  the  eloquence  of  the 
painter's  or  the  sculptor's  art :  the  poetry,  if  the  feel- 
ing declares  itself  by  such  signs  as  escape  from  us 
when  we  are  unconscious  of  being  seen ;  the  oratory, 
if  the  signs  are  those  we  use  for  the  purpose  of  volun- 
tary communication. 

The  narrative  style  answers  to  what  is  called  histori- 
cal painting,  which  it  is  the  fashion  among  connoisseurs 
to  treat  as  the  climax  of  the  pictorial  art.  That  it  is 
the  most  difficult  branch  of  the  art,  we  do  not  doubt, 
because,  in  its  perfection,  it  includes  the  perfection  of 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFOR^ 


102  POETRY   AND   ITS   VARIETIES. 

all  the  other  branches ;  as,  in  like  manner,  an  epic 
poem,  though,  in  so  far  as  it  is  epic  (i.e.,  narrative),  it 
is  not  poetry  at  all,  is  yet  esteemed  the  greatest  effort 
of  poetic  genius,  because  there  is  no  kind  whatever  of 
poetry  which  may  not  appropriately  find  a  place  in  it. 
But  an  historical  picture  as  such,  that  is,  as  the  repre- 
sentation of  an  incident,  must  necessarily,  as  it  seems 
to  us,  be  poor  and  ineifecti^e.  The  narrative  powers 
of  painting  are  extremely  limited.  Scarcely  any  pic- 
ture, scarcely  even  any  series  of  pictures,  tells  its  own 
story  without  the  aid  of  an  interpreter.  But  it  is  the 
single  figures,  which,  to  us,  are  the  great  charm  even  of 
an  historical  picture.  It  is  in  these  that  the  power 
of  the  art  is  really  seen.  In  the  attempt  to  narrate, 
visible  and  periDanent  signs  are  too  far  behind  the  fugi- 
tive audible  ones,  which  follow  so  fast  one  after  another  ; 
while  the  faces  and  figures  in  a  narrative  picture,  even 
though  they  be  Titian's,  stand  still.  l\Tio  would  not 
prefer  one  "  Virgin  and  Child "  of  Raphael  to  all  the 
pictures  which  Rubens,  with  his  fat,  frouzy  Dutch 
Venuses,  ever  painted?  —  though  Rubens,  besides  ex- 
celling almost  every  one  in  his  mastery  over  the 
mechanical  parts  of  his  art,  often  shows  real  genius  in 
groiqnng  his  figures,  the  peculiar  problem  of  historical 
painting.  But  then,  who,  except  a  mere  student  of 
drawing  and  coloring,  ever  cared  to  look  twice  at  any 
of  the  figures  themselves  ?  The  power  of  painting  lies 
in  poetry,  of  which  Rubens  had  not  the  slightest 
tincture,  —  not  in  narrative,  wherein  he  might  have 
excelled. 

The  single  figures,  however,  in  an  historical  picture, 
are  rather  the  eloquence  of  painting  than  the  poetry. 


POETRY   AND   ITS   VARIETIES.  103 

They  mostly  (unless  they  are  quite  out  of  place  in  the 
picture)  express  the  feelings  of  one  person  as  modified 
by  the  presence  of  others.  Accordingly,  the  minds 
whose  bent  leads  them  rather  to  eloquence  than  to  poet- 
ry rush  to  historical  painting.  The  French  painters, 
for  instance,  seldom  attempt,  because  they  could  make 
notliing  of,  single  heads,  like  those  glorious  ones  of  the 
Italian  masters  with  which  they  might  feed  themselves 
day  after  day  in  their  own  Louvre.  They  must  all  be 
historical ;  and  they  are,  almost  to  a  man,  attitudinizers. 
K  we  wished  to  give  any  young  artist  the  most  impres- 
sive warning  our  imagination  could  devise  against  that 
kind  of  vice  in  the  pictorial  which  corresponds  to  rant 
in  the  histrionic  art,  we  would  advise  him  to  walk  once 
up  and  once  down  the  gallery  of  the  Luxembourg. 
Every  figure  in  French  painting  or  statuary  seems  to  be 
showing  itself  off  before  spectators.  They  are  not 
poetical,  but  in  the  worst  style  of  corrupted  elo- 
quence. 


II. 

"  Nascitur  Poeta  "  is  a  maxim  of  classical  antiquity, 
which  has  passed  to  these  latter  days  with  less  question- 
ing than  most  of  the  doctrines  of  that  early  age.  When 
it  originated,  the  human  faculties  were  occupied,  for- 
tunately for  posterity,  less  in  examining  how  the  works 
of  genius  are  created  than  in  creating  them ;  and  the 
adage  probably  had  no  higher  source  than  the  tendency 
common  among  mankind  to  consider  all  power  which  is 


y 


104  POETRY   AND   ITS   VARIETIES. 

not  visibly  the  effect  of  practice,  all  skill  which  is  not 
capable  of  being  reduced  to  mechanical  rules,  as  the 
result  of  a  peculiar  gift.  Yet  this  aphorism,  bom  in 
the  infancy  of  psychology,  will  perhaps  be  found,  now 
when  that  science  is  in  its  adolescence,  to  be  as  true  as 
an  epigram  ever  is  ;  that  is,  to  contain  some  truth,  — 
tmth,  however,  which  has  been  so  compressed,  and  bent 
out  of  shape,  in  order  to  tie  it  up  into  so  small  a  knot 
of  only  two  words,  that  it  requires  an  almost  infinite 
amount  of  unrolling  and  laying  straight  before  it  will 
resume  its  just  proportions. 

We  Jire  not  now  intending  to  remark  upon  the  grosser 
misapplications  of  this  ancient  maxim,  which  have  en- 
gendered so  many  races  of  poetasters.  The  days  are 
gone  by,  when  every  raw  youth,  whose  borrowed  phan- 
tasies have  set  themselves  to  a  borrowed  tune,  mistak- 
ing, as  Coleridge  says,  an  ardent  desire  of  poetic 
reputation  for  poetic  genius,  while  unable  to  disguise 
from  himself  that  he  had  taken  no  means  whereby  he 
might  become  a  poet,  could  fancy  himself  a  born  one. 
Those  who  would  reap  without  sowing,  and  gain  the 
victory  without  fighting  the  battle,  are  ambitious  now 
of  another  sort  of  distinction,  and  are  bom  novelists 
or  public  speakers,  not  poets ;  and  the  wiser  thinkers 
understand  and  acknowledge  that  poetic  excellence  is 
subject  to  the  same  necessary  conditions  with  any  other 
mental  endowment,  and  that  to  no  one  of  the  spiritual 
benefactors  of  mankind  is  a  higher  or  a  more  assiduous 
intellectual  culture  needful  than  to  the  poet.  It  is  true, 
he  possesses  this  advantage  over  others  who  use  the 
"instrument  of  words,"  —  that,  of  the  truths  which  he 
utters,  a  larger  proportion  are  derived  from  personal 


POETRY   AXD    ITS    VARIETIES.  105 

consciousness,  and  a  smaller  from  philosophic  investiga- 
tion. But  the  power  itself  of  discriminating  between 
what  really  is  consciousness  and  what  is  only  a  pro- 
cess of  inference  completed  in  a  single  instant,  and  the 
capacity  of  distinguisTiing  whether  that  of  which  the 
mind  is  conscious  be  an  eternal  truth  or  but  a  dream, 
are  among  the  last  results  of  the  most  matured  and 
perfect  intellect.  Not  to  mention  that  the  poet,  no 
more  than  any  other  person  who  writes,  confines  him- 
self altogether  to  intuitive  truths,  nor  has  any  means 
of  communicating  even  these  but  by  words,  every  one 
of  which  derives  all  its  power  of  conveying  a  meaning 
from  a  whole  host  of  acquired  notions  and  facts  learnt 
by  study  and  experience. 

Nevertheless,  it  seems  undeniable  in  point  of  fact,  and 
consistent  with  the  principles  of  a  sound  metaphysics, 
that  there  are  poetic  natures.  There  is  a  mental  and 
physical  constitution  or  temperament  peculiarly  fitted, 
for  poetry.  This  temperament  will  not  of  itself  make  a 
poet,  no  more  than  the  soil  will  the  fruit ;  and  as  good 
fruit  may  be  raised  by  culture  from  indifferent  soils,  so 
may  good  poetry  fi-om  naturally  unpoetical  minds.  But 
the  poetry  of  one  who  is  a  poet  by  nature  will  be  clearly 
and  broadly  distinguishable  from  the  poetry  of  mere 
culture.  It  may  not  be  truer ;  it  may  not  be  more 
useful ;  but  it  will  be  different :  fewer  will  appreciate  it, 
even  though  many  should  affect  to  do  so  ;  but  in  those 
few  it  will  find  a  keener  sympathy,  and  will  yield  them 
a  deeper  enjoyment. 

One  may  write  genuine  poetry,  and  not  be  a  poet ; 
for  whosoever  writes  out  truly  any  human  feeling, 
writes  poetry.     All  persons,  even  the  most  unimagi- 


\ 


106  POETRY   AJSTD   ITS   VARIETIES. 

native,  in  moments  of  strong  emotion,  speak  poetry ; 
and  hence  the  drama  is  poetry,  which  else  were  always 
prose,  except  when  a  poet  is  one  of  the  characters. 
What  is  poetry  but  the  thoughts  and  words  in  which 
emotion  spontaneously  embodies  itself?  As  there  are 
few  who  are  not,  at  least  for  some  moments  and  in  some 
situations,  capable  of  some  strong  feeling,  poetry  is 
natural  to  most  persons  at  some  period  of  their  lives ; 
and  any  one  whose  feelings  are  genuine,  though  but  of 
the  average  strength,  —  if  he  be  not  diverted  by  uncon- 
genial thoughts  or  occupations  from  the  indulgence  of 
them,  and  if  he  acquire  by  culture,  as  all  persons  may, 
the  faculty  of  delineating  them  correctly,  —  has  it  in  his 
power  to  be  a  poet,  so  far  as  a  life  passed  in  writing 
unquestionable  poetry  may  be  considered  to  confer  that 
title.  But  ought  it  to  do  so?  Yes,  perhaps,  in  a  col- 
lection of  "British  poets."  But  "poet"  is  the  name 
also  of  a  variety  of  man,  not  solely  of  the  author  of  a 
particular  variety  of  book.  Now,  to  have  written  whole 
volumes  of  real  poetry  is  possible  to  almost  all  kinds  of 
characters,  and  implies  no  greater  peculiarity  of  mental 
construction  than  to  be  the  author  of  a  history  or  a 
novel. 

Whom,  then,  shall  we  call  poets?     Those  who  are  so 

/  constituted,  that  emotions  are  the  links  of  association  by 
which  their  ideas,  both  sensuous  and  spiritual,  are  con- 

N^  nected  together.  This  constitution  belongs  (within 
certain  limits)  to  all  in  whom  poetry  is  a  pervading 
principle.  In  all  others,  poetry  is  something  extraneous 
and  superinduced  ;  something  out  of  themselves,  foreign 
to  the  habitual  course  of  their  every-day  lives  and  char- 
acters ;    a  world  to  which  they  may  make  occasional 


POETRY   AND    ITS    VARIETIES.  107 

Visits,  but  where  they  are  sojourners,  not  dwellers,  and 
which,  when  out  of  it,  or  even  when  in  it,  they  think 
of,  perad venture,  but  as  a  phantom-world,  —  a  place  of 
ignes  fatui  and  spectral  illusions.  Those  only  who 
have  the  peculiarity  of  association  which  we  have  men- 
tioned, and  which  is  a  natural  though  not  an  universal 
consequence  of  intense  sensibiHty,  instead  of  seeming 
not  themselves  when  they  are  uttering  poetry,  scarcely 
seem  themselves  when  uttering  any  tiling  to  which  poetry 
is  foreign.  Whatever  be  the  thing  which  they  are  con- 
templating, if  it  be  capable  of  connecting  itself  with 
their  emotions,  the  aspect  under  which  it  first  and  most 
natvu'ally  paints  itself  to  them  is  its  poetic  aspect.  The 
poet  of  culture  sees  his  object  in  prose,  and  dgscribes 
it  in  poetry  :  the  poet  of  nature  actually  sees  it  in 
poetry. 

This  point  is  perhaps  worth  some  little  illustration  ; 
the  rather  as  metaphysicians  (the  ultimate  arbiters  of  all 
philosophical  criticism) ,  while  they  have  busied  them- 
selves for  two  thousand  years,  more  or  less,  about  the 
few  universal  laws  of  human  nature,  have  strangely 
neglected  the  analysis  of  its  diversities.  Of  these, 
none  lie  deeper  or  reach  further  than  the  varieties  which 
difference  of  nature  and  of  education  makes  in  what 
may  be  termed  the  habitual  bond  of  association.  In  a 
mind  entirely  uncultivated,  which  is  also  without  any 
strong  feelings,  objects  whether  of  sense  or  of  intellect 
arrange  themselves  in  the  mere  casual  order  in  which 
they  have  been  seen,  heard,  or  otherwise  perceived. 
Persons  of  this  sort  may  be  said  to  think  chrono- 
logically. If  they  remember  a  fact,  it  is  by  reason  of 
a  fortuitous  coincidence  with  some  trifling:  incident  or 


V 


108  POETRY   AND   ITS    VAEIETIES. 

circumstance  which  took  place  at  the  very  time.  If 
they  have  a  story  to  tell,  or  testimony  to  deliver  in  a 
witness-box,  their  narrative  must  follow  the  exact  order 
in  which  the  events  took  place :  dodge  them,  and  the 
thread  of  association  is  broken ;  they  cannot  go  on. 
Their  associations,  to  use  the  language  of  philosophers, 
are  chiefly  of  the  successive,  not  the  synchronous  kind ; 
and,  whether  successive  or  synchronous,  are  mostly 
casual. 

To  the  man  of  science,  again,  or  of  business,  objects 
group  themselves  according  to  the  artificial  classifications 
which  the  understanding  has  voluntarily  made  for  the 
convenience  of  thought  or  of  practice.  But,  where  any 
of  the  impressions  are  vivid  and  intense,  the  associations 
into  which  these  enter  are  the  ruling  ones ;  it  being  a 
well-known  law  of  association,  that,  the  stronger  a  feeling 
is,  the  more  quickly  and  strongly  it  associates  itself  wdth 
any  other  object  or  feeling.  Where,  therefore,  nature 
has  given  strong  feelings,  and  education  has  not  created 
factitious  tendencies  stronger  than  the  natural  ones,  the 
prevailing  associations  will  be  those  which  connect 
objects  and  ideas  with  emotions,  and  with  each  other 
through  the  intervention  of  emotions.  Thoughts  and 
images  will  be  linked,  together  according  to  the  similarity 
of  the  feelings  which  cling  to  them.  A  thought  will 
introduce  a  thought  by  first  introducing  a  feeling  wliich 
is  allied  with  it.  At  the  centre  of  each  group  of 
thoughts  or  images  wUl  be  found  a  feeling ;  and  the 
thoughts  or  images  will  be  there,  only  because  the  feel- 
>>..^  ing  was  there.  The  combinations  which  the  mind  puts 
together,  the  pictures  which  it  paints,  the  wholes  which 
Imagination  constructs  out  of  the  materials  supplied  by 


/ 


P(i>ETRY   AXD   ITS    VillETIES.  109 

Fancy,  will  be  pc^ebtgd  to  some  dominant  feelinr/ ,  not, 
as  in  other  natu' 'fes,  to  a  dominant  thought,  for  their 
unity  and  consistency  of  character,  —  for  what  distin- 
guishes them  from  incoherences. 

The  difference,  then,  between  the  poetry  of  a  poet,  -^^ 
and  the  poetry  of  a  cultivated  but  not  naturally  poetic 
mind,  is,  that  in  the  latter,  with  however  bright  a  halo 
of  feeling  the  thought  may  be  surrounded  and  glorified, 
the  thought  itself  is  always  the  conspicuous  object ; 
while  the  poetry  of  a  poet  is  Feeling  itself,  employing 
Thought  only  as  the  medium  of  its  expression.  In  the 
one,  feeling  waits  upon  thought ;  in  the  other,  thought 
upon  feeling.  The  one  writer  has  a  distinct  aim,  com-  / 
mon  to  him  with  any  other  didactic  author :  he  desires 
to  convey  the  thought,  and  he  conveys  it  clothed  in  the 
feelings  which  it  excites  In  himself,  or  which  he  deems 
most  appropriate  to  it.  The  other  merely  pours  forth  \ 
the  ovei-flowing  of  his  feelings ;  and  all  the  thoughts 
which  those  feelings  suggest  are  floated  promiscuously 
along  the  stream. 

It  may  assist  in  rendering  our  meaning  intelligible 
if  we  illustrate  it  by  a  parallel  between  the  two  English 
authors  of  our  own  day  who  have  produced  the  greatest 
quantity  of  true  and  enduring  poetry,  —  Wordsworth 
and  Shelley.  Apter  instances  could  not  be  wished  for  : 
the  one  might  be  cited  as  the  t}^e,  the  exemplar,  of 
what  the  poetry  of  culture  may  accomplish  ;  the  other, 
as  perhaps  the  most  striking  example  ever  known  of 
the  poetic  temperament.  How  different,  accordingly, 
is  the  poetry  of  these  two  great  writers  !  In  Words- 
worth, the  poetry  is  almost  always  the  mere  setting  of 
a  thought.     The  thought  may  be  more  valuable  than 


110  POETRY^i^^^   ^S   V.4JHETrES. 

the  setting,  or  it  may  be  less  valiiable ;  ^)ut  there  can  be 
no  question  as  to  which  was  first  in  hiHnind.  What  he 
is  impressed  with,  and  what  he  is  anxious  to  impress,  is 
some  proposition  more  or  less  distinctly  conceived ; 
some  truth,  or  something  which  he  deems  such.  He 
lets  the  thought  dwell  in  his  mind,  till  it  excites,  as  is 
the  nature  of  thought,  other  thoughts,  and  also  such 
feelings  as  the  measure  of  his  sensibility  is  adequate  to 
supply.  Among  these  thoughts  and  feelings,  had  he 
chosen  a  different  walk  of  authorship  (and  there  are 
many  in  which  he  might  equally  have  excelled),  he 
would  probably  have  made  a  different  selection  of  media 
for  enforcing  the  parent  thought :  his  habits,  however, 
being  those  of  poetic  composition,  he  selects  in  prefer- 
ence the  strongest  feelings,  and  the  thoughts  with  which 
most  of  feeling  is  naturally  or  habitually  connected. 
His  poetry,  therefore,  may  be  defined  to  be  his  thoughts, 
colored  by,  and  impressing  themselves  by  means  of, 
emotions.  Such  poetry,  Wordsworth  has  occupied  a 
long  life  in  producing ;  and  well  and  wisely  has  he  so 
done.  Criticisms,  no  doubt,  may  be  made  occasionally 
both  upon  the  thoughts  themselves,  and  upon  the  skUl 
he  has  demonstrated  in  the  choice  of  his  media ;  for  an 
affair  of  skill  and  study,  in  the  most  rigorous  sense,  it 
evidently  was.  But  he  has  not  labored  in  vain :  he 
has  exercised,  and  continues  to  exercise,  a  powerful, 
and  mostly  a  highly  beneficial  influence  over  the  forma- 
tion and  growth  of  not  a  few  of  the  most  cultivated  and 
vigorous  of  the  youthful  minds  of  our  time,  over  whose 
heads  poetry  of  the  opposite  description  would  have 
flown,  for  want  of  an  original  organization,  physical  or 
mental,  in  sympathy  with  it. 


POETRY   A]ST)    ITS    VARIETIES.  Ill 

On  the  other  hand,  "Wordsworth's  poetry  is  never 
bounding,  never  ebullient ;  has  little  even  of  the  appear- 
ance of  spontaneousness  :  the  well  is  never  so  full  that 
it  overflows.     There  is   an   air  of  calm  deliberateness 
about  all  he  writes,  which  is  not  characteristic  of  the 
poetic  temperament.     His  poetry  seems  one  thing  ;  him- 
self, another.     He  seems  to  be  poetical  because  he  wills 
to  be  so,  not  because  he  cannot  help  it.     Did  he  will  to 
dismiss  poetry,  he  need  never  again,   it  might  almost 
seem,  have  a  poetical  thought.     He  never  seems  pos- 
sessed by  any  feeling :  no  emotion  seems  ever  so  strong 
as  to  have  entire  sway,  for  the  time  being,  over  the  cur- 
rent of  his  thoughts.     He  never,  even  for  the  space  of 
a  few  stanzas,  appears  entirely  given  up  to  exultation, 
or  grief,  or  pity,  or  love,  or  admiration,  or  devotion,  or 
even  animal  spirits.     He  now  and  then,  though  seldom, 
attempts  to  write  as  if  he  were ;  and  never,  we  think, 
without  leaving  an  impression  of  poverty  :  as  the  brook, 
which,  on  nearly  level  ground,   quite  fills  its   banks, 
appears  but  a  thread  when  running  rapidly  down  a  pre- 
cipitous declivity.     He  has  feeling  enough  to  form  a 
decent,  graceful,  even  beautiful,  decoration  to  a  thought 
which  is  in  itself  interesting  and  moving ;  but  not  so 
much  as  suffices  to  stir  up  the  soul  by  mere  sympathy 
with  itself  in  its  simplest  manifestation,  nor  enough  to 
summon  up  that  array  of  "  thoughts  of  power,"  which, 
in  a  richly  stored  mind,  always  attends  the  call  of  really 
intense  feeling.     It  is  for  this  reason,  doubtless,  that 
the    genius    of   Wordsworth    is    essentially    unlyrical. 
Lyric  poetry,   as  it  was  the  earliest  kind,  is  also,  if 
the  view  we  are  now  taking  of  poetry  be  correct,  more 
eminently  and  peculiarly  poetry  than  any  other :   it  is 


\ 


y 


112  POETRY   AND   ITS   VARIETIES. 

the  poetry  most  natural  to  a  really  poetic  temperament, 
and  least  capable  of  being  successfully  imitated  by  one 
not  so  endowed  by  nature. 

Shelley  is  the  very  reverse  of  all  this.  "Where 
Wordsworth  is  strong,  he  is  weak :  where  Wordsworth 
is  weak,  he  is  strong.  Culture,  that  culture  by  which 
Wordsworth  has  reared  from  his  own  inward  nature  the 
richest  harvest  ever  brought  forth  by  a  aoil  of  so  little 
depth,  is  precisely  what  was  wanting  to  Shelley ;  or 
let  us  rather  say,  he  had  not,  at  the  period  of  his  de- 
plorably early  death,  reached  sufficiently  far  in  that 
intellectual  progression  of  which  he  was  capable,  and 
which,  if  it  has  done  so  much  for  greatly  inferior  na- 
tures, might  have  made  of  him  the  most  perfect,  as  he 
was  already  the  most  gifted,  of  our  poets.  For  him, 
voluntary  mental  discipline  had  done  little :  the  vivid- 
ness of  his  emotions  and  of  his  sensations  had  done  aU. 
He  seldom  follows  up  an  idea :  it  starts  into  life,  sum- 
mons from  the  fairy-land  of  his  inexhaustible  fancy 
some  three  or  four  bold  images,  then  vanishes,  and 
straight  he  is  off  on  the  wings  of  some  casual  associa- 
tion into  quite  another  sphere.  He  had  scarcely  yet 
acquired  the  consecutiveness  of  thought  necessary  for  a 
long  poem.  His  more  ambitious  compositions  too  often 
resemble  the  scattered  fragments  of  a  mirror,  —  colors 
brilliant  as  life,  single  images  without  end,  but  no  pic- 
ture. It  is  only  when  under  the  overruling  influence  of 
some  one  state  of  feeling,  either  actually  experienced, 
or  summoned  up  in  the  vividness  of  reality  by  a  fervid 
imagination,  that  he  writes  as  a  great  poet ;  unity  of  feel- 
ing being  to  him  the  harmonizing  principle  which  a  cen- 
tral idea  is  to  minds  of  another  class,  and  supplying  the 


POETRY   AND    ITS    VARIETIES.  113 

coherency  and  consistency  which  would  else  have  been 
wanting.  Thus  it  is  in  many  of  his  smaller,  and  espe- 
cially his  lyrical  poems.  They  are  obviously  written  to 
exhale,  perhaps  to  relieve,  a  state  of  feeling,  or  of  con- 
ception of  feeling,  almost  oppressive  from  its  vividness. 
The  thoughts  and  imagery  are  suggested  by  the  feeling, 
and  are  such  as  it  finds  unsought.  The  state  of  feel- 
ing may  be  either  of  soul  or  of  sense,  or  oftener  (might 
we  not  say  invariably  ?)  of  both ;  for  the  poetic  tem- 
perament is  usually,  perhaps  always,  accompanied  by 
exquisite  senses.  The  exciting  cause  may  be  either  an 
object  or  an  idea.  But  whatever  of  sensation  enters 
into  the  feeling  must  not  be  local,  or  consciously  organ- 
ic :  it  is  a  condition  of  the  whole  frame,  not  of  a  part 
only.  Like  the  state  of  sensation  produced  by  a  fine 
climate,  or  indeed  like  all  strongly  pleasurable  or  painful 
sensations  in  an  impassioned  nature,  it  pervades  the 
entire  nervous  system.  States  of  feeling,  whether  sen-  \ 
suous  or  spiritual,  which  thus  possess  the  whole  being, 
are  the  fountains  of  that  which  we  have  called  the 
poetry  of  poets,  and  which  is  little  else  than  a  pouring- 
forth  of  the  thoughts  and  images  that  pass  across  the 
mind  while  some  permanent  state  of  feeling  is  occupy- 
ing it. 

To  the  same  original  fineness  of  organization,  Shel- 
ley was  doubtless  indebted  for  another  of  his  rarest 
gifts,  —  that  exuberance  of  imagery,  which,  when  unre- 
pressed,  as  in  many  of  his  poems  it  is,  amounts  to  a 
fault.  The  susceptibih'ty  of  his  nervous  system,  which 
made  his  emotions  intense,  made  also  the  impressions 
of  his  external  senses  deep  and  clear ;  and  agreeably  to 
the  law  of  association,  by  which,  as  already  remarked, 


/ 


114  POETRY   AST)   ITS    VARIETIES. 

the  Strongest  impressions  are  those  which  associate 
themselves  the  most  easily  and  strongly,  these  vivid 
sensations  were  readily  recalled  to  mind  by  all  objects 
or  thoughts  which  had  co-existed  with  them,  and  by  all 
feelings  wliich  in  any  degree  resembled  them.  Never 
did  a  fancy  so  teem  with  sensuous  imagery  as  Shelley's. 
Wordsworth  economizes  an  image,  and  detains  it  until 
he  has  distilled  all  the  poetry  out  of  it,  and  it  will  not 
yield  a  drop  more :  Shelley  lavishes  his  with  a  pro- 
fusion which  is  unconscious  because  it  is  inexhaustible. 

If,  then,  the  maxim  "Nascitur  poeta"  mean,  either 
that  the  power  of  producing  poetical  compositions  is  a 
peculiar  faculty  which  the  poet  brings  into  the  world 
with  him,  which  grows  with  his  growth  like  any  of  his 
bodily  powers,  and  is  as  independent  of  culture  as  his 
height  and  his  complexion ;  or  that  any  natural  pecu- 
liarity whatever  is  implied  in  producing  poetry,  real 
poetry,  and  in  any  quantity,  —  such  poetry  too,  as,  to 
the  majority  of  educated  and  intelligent  readers,  shall 
appear  quite  as  good  as,  or  even  better  than,  any  other, — 
in  either  sense  the  doctrine  is  false.  And,  nevertheless, 
there  is  poetry  which  could  not  emanate  but  from  a 
mental  and  physical  constitution,  peculiar,  not  in  the 
kind,  but  in  the  degree,  of  its  susceptibility ;  a  consti- 
tution which  makes  its  possessor  capable  of  greater 
happiness  than  mankind  in  general,  and  also  of  great- 
er unhappiness ;  and  because  greater,  so  also  more 
various.  And  such  poetry,  to  all  who  know  enough  of 
nature  to  own  it  as  being  in  nature,  is  much  more 
poetry,  is  poetry  in  a  far  higher  sense,  than  any  other ; 
since  the  common  element  of  all  poetry,  that  which  \^ 
constitutes  poetry,  — human  feeling,  —  enters  far  more 


POETEY   AXD    ITS    VARIETIES.  115 

largely  into  this  than  into  the  poetry  of  culture ;  not 
only  because  the  natures  which  we  have  called  poeti- 
cal really  feel  more,'  and  consequently  have  more  feel- 
ing to  express,  but  because,  the  capacity  of  feeling 
being  so  great,  feeling,  when  excited  and  not  volunta- 
rily resisted,  seizes  the  helm  of  their  thoughts,  and  the 
succession  of  ideas  and  images  becomes  the  mere  ut- 
terance of  an  emotion ;  not,  as  in  other  natures,  the 
emotion  a  mere  ornamental  coloring  of  the  thought, 

Ordinary  education  and  the  ordinary  course  of  life 
are  constantly  at  work  counteracting  this  quality  of 
mind,  and  substituting  habits  more  suitable  to  their 
own  ends  :  if,  instead  of  substituting,  they  were  content 
to  superadd,  there  would  be  nothing  to  complain  of. 
But  when  wUl  education  consist,  not  in  repressing  any 
mental  faculty  or  power,  from  the  uncontrolled  action 
of  which  danger  is  apprehended,  but  in  training  up  to 
its  proper  strength  the  corrective  and  antagonist  power  ? 

In  whomsoever  the  quality  which  we  have  described 
exists,  and  is  not  stifled,  that  person  is  a  poet.  Doubt- 
less he  is  a  greater  poet  in  proportion  as  the  fineness  of 
his  perceptions,  whether  of  sense  or  of  internal  con- 
sciousness, furnishes  him  with  an  ampler  supply  of 
lovely  images,  the  vigor  and  richness  of  his  intellect 
with  a  greater  abundance  of  moving  thoughts.  For  it 
is  through  these  thoughts  and  images  that  the  feeling 
speaks,  and  through  their  impressiveness  that  it  im- 
presses itself,  and  finds  response  in  other  hearts ;  and, 
from  these  media  of  transmitting  it  (contrary  to  the 
laws  of  physical  nature),  increase  of  intensity  is  re- 
flected back  upon  the  feeling  itself.  But  all  these  it  is 
possible  to  have,  and  not  be  a  poet :    they  are  mere 


/ 


\ 


116  POETRY  A^^)   ITS  VARIETIES. 

materials,  which  the  poet  shares  in  common  with  other 
people.  What  constitutes  the  poet  is  not  the  imagery, \ 
nor  the  thoughts,  nor  even  the  feelings,  but  the  law 
according  to  which  they  are  called  up.  He  is  a  poet,  ^ 
not  because  he  has  ideas  of  any  particular  kind,  but 
because  the  succession  of  his  ideas  is  subordinate  to  the 
course  of  his  emotions.  .  f' 

Many  who  have  never  acknowledged  this  in  theory 
bear  testimony  to  it  in  their  particular  judgments.  In 
listening  to  an  oration,  or  reading  a  written  discourse, 
not  professedly  poetical,  when  do  we  begin  to  feel  that 
the  speaker  or  author  is  putting  off  the  character  of  the 
orator  or  the  prose-writer,  and  is  passing  into  the  poet  ? 
Not  when  he  begins  to  show  strong  feeling ;  then  we 
merely  say,  he  is  in  earnest ;  he  feels  what  he  says  : 
still  less  when  he  expresses  himself  in  imagery  ;  then, 
unless  illustration  be  manifestly  his  sole  object,  we  are 
apt  to  say,  this  is  aifectation.  It  is  when  the  feeling 
(instead  of  passing  away,  or,  if  it  continue,  letting  the 
train  of  thoughts  run  on  exactly  as  they  would  have 
done  if  there  were  no  influence  at  work  but  the  mere 
intellect)  becomes  itself  the  originator  of  another  train 
of  association,  which  expels,  or  blends  with,  the  former  ; 
when  (for  example)  either  his  words,  or  the  mode  of 
their  arrangement,  are  such  as  we  spontaneously  use 
only  when  in  a  state  of  excitement,  proving  that  the 
mind  is  at  least  as  much  occupied  by  a  passive  state  of 
its  own  feelings  as  by  the  desire  of  attaining  the  pre- 
meditated end  which  the  discourse  has  in  view.* 

*  And  this,  we  may  remark  by  the  way,  seems  to  point  to  the  true 
theory  of  poetic  diction,  and  to  suggest  the  true  answer  to  as  much  as  is 
erroneous  of  Wordsworth's  celebrated  doctrine  on  that  subject.    For,  on  the 


POETRY   AND   ITS    VARIETIES.  117 

Our  judgments  of  authors  wiio  lay  actual  claim  to 
the  title  of  poets  follow  the  same  principle.  When- 
ever, after  a  writer's  meaning  is  fully  understood,  it  is 
still  matter  of  reasoning  and  discussion  whether  he  is  a 
poet  or  not,  he  will  be  found  to  be  wanting  in  the 
characteristic  peculiarity  of  association  so  often  adverted 
to.  When,  on  the  contrary,  after  reading  or  hearing 
one  or  two  passages,  we  instinctively  and  without  hesita- 
tion cry  out,  "  This  is  a  poet  I  "  the  probability  is  that  the 
passages  are  strongly  marked  with  this  peculiar  quality. 
And  we  may  add,  that,  in  such  case,  a  critic,  who,  not 
having  sufficient  feeling  to  respond  to  the  poetry,  is  also 
without  sufficient  philosophy  to  understand  it  though 
he  feel  it  not,  wiU  be  apt  to  pronounce,  not  "This  is 
prose,"  but  "  This  is  exaggeration,"  "  This  is  mysticism," 
or  "  This  is  nonsense." 

Although  a  philosopher  cannot,  by  culture,  make 
himself,  in  the  peculiar  sense  in  which  we  now  use  the 
term,  a  poet,  —  unless  at  least  he  have  that  peculiarity 
of  nature  which  would  probably  have  made  poetry  his 
earliest  pursuit,  —  a  poet  may  always,  by  culture,  make 
himself  a  philosopher.  The  poetic  laws  of  association 
are  by  no  means  incompatible  with  the  more  ordinary 
laws ;  are  by  no  means  such  as  must  have  their  course, 
even  though  a  deliberate  purpose  require  their  suspen- 
sion.     If. the  pecuHarities  of  the  poetic  temperament 

one  hand,  all  language  which  is  the  natural  expression  of  feeling  is  really 
poetical,  and  will  be  felt  as  such,  apart  from  conventional  associations;  but, 
on  the  other,  whenever  intellectual  culture  has  afforded  a  choice  between 
several  modes  of  expressing  the  same  emotion,  the  stronger  the  feeling  is, 
the  more  naturally  and  certainly  will  it  prefer  the  language  which  is  most 
peculiarly  appropriated  to  itself,  and  kept  sacred  from  the  contact  of  more 
vulgar  objects  of  contemplation. 


\ 


118  POETRY   AND   ITS    VARIETIES. 

were  uncontrollable  in  any  poet,  they  might  be  supposed 
so  in  Shelley ;  yet  how  powerfully,  in  the  "  Cenci,"  does 
he  coerce  and  restrain  all  the  characteristic  qualities  of 
his  genius  !  what  severe  simplicity,  in  place  of  his  usual 
barbaric  splendor !  how  rigidly  does  he  keep  the  feel- 
ings and  the  imagery  in  subordination  to  the  thought ! 

The  investigation  of  nature  requires  no  habits  or 
qualities  of  mind  but  such  as  may  always  be  acquired 
by  industry  and  mental  activity.  Because,  at  one  time, 
the  mind  may  be  so  given  up  to  a  state  of  feeling,  that 
the  succession  of  its  ideas  is  determined  by  the  present 
enjoyment  or  suffering  which  pervades  it,  this  is  no 
reason  but  that  in  the  calm  retirement  of  study,  when 
under  no  peculiar  excitement  either  of  the  outward  or 
of  the  inward  sense,  it  may  form  any  combinations, 
or  pursue  any  trains  of  ideas,  which  are  most  conducive 
to  the  purposes  of  philosophic  inquiry ;  and  may,  while 
in  that  state,  form  deliberate  convictions,  from  which  no 
excitement  will  afterwards  make  it  swerA'e.  Might  we 
not  go  even  further  than  this  ?  We  shall  not  pause  to 
ask  whether  it  be  not  a  misunderstanding  of  the  nature 
of  passionate  feeling  to  imagine  that  it  is  inconsistent 
with  calmness  ;  whether  they  who  so  deem  of  it  do  not 
mistake  passion,  in  the  militant  or  antagonistic  state, 
for  the  type  of  passion  universally,  —  do  not  confound 
passion  struggling  towards  an  outward  object,  with  pas- 
/  sion  brooding  over  itself.  But,  without  entering  into 
this  deeper  investigation,  that  capacity  of  strong  feel- 
ing which  is  supposed  necessarily  to  disturb  the  judg- 
ment is  also  the  material  out  of  which  all  motives  are 
made, — the  motives,  consequently,  which  lead  human 
beings  to  the  pursuit  of  truth.     The  greater  the  indi- 


POETRY   AND    ITS    VARIETIES.  119 

vidual's  capability  of  happiness  and.  of  misery,  the 
strono-er  interest  has  that  individual  in  arriving;  at 
truth  ;  and,  when  once  that  interest  is  felt,  an  impas- 
sioned nature  is  sure  to  pursue  this,  as  to  pursue  any 
other  object,  with  greater  ardor :  for  energy  of  charac- 
ter is  commonly  the  offspring  of  strong  feeling.  If, 
therefore,  the  most  impassioned  natures  do  not  ripen 
into  the  most  powerful  intellects,  it  is  always  from 
defect  of  culture,  or  something  wrong  in  the  circum- 
stances by  which  the  being  has  originally  or  succes- 
sively been  surrounded.  Undoubtedly,  strong  feelings 
require  a  strong  intellect  to  carry  them,  as  more  sail 
requii'es  more  ballast ;  and  when,  from  neglect  or  bad 
education,  that  strength  is  wanting,  no  wonder  if  the 
grandest  and  swiftest  vessels  make  the  most  utter 
wreck. 

Where,  as  in  some  of  our  older  poets,  a  poetic 
nature  has  been  united  with  logical  and  scientific  cul- 
ture, the  peculiarity  of  association  arising  from  the 
finer  nature  so  perpetually  alternates  with  the  associa- 
tions attainable  by  commoner  natures  trained  to  high 
perfection,  that  its  own  particular  law  is  not  so  con- 
spicuously characteristic  of  the  result  produced,  as  in  a 
poet  like  Shelley,  to  whom  systematic  intellectual  cul- 
ture, in  a  measure  proportioned  to  the  intensity  of  his 
own  nature,  has  been  wanting.  Whether  the  supe- 
riority will  naturally  be  on  the  side  of  the  philosopher- 
poet,  or  of  the  mere  poet ;  whether  the  writings  of  the 
one  ought,  as  a  whole,  to  be  truer,  and  their  influence 
more  beneficent,  than  those  of  the  other,  —  is  too  obvious 
in  principle  to  need  statement :  it  would  be  absurd  to 
doubt  whether  two  endowments  are  better  than  one ; 


120  POETRY   AND   ITS   VAEIETIES. 

whether  truth  is  more  certainly  arrived  at  by  two  pro- 
cesses, verifying  and  correcting  each  other,  than  by  one 
alone.  Unfortunately,  in  practice,  the  matter  is  not 
quite  80  simple :  there  the  question  often  is.  Which  is 
least  prejudicial  to  the  intellect,  —  uncultivation  or  mal- 
cultivation?  For,  as  long  as  education  consists  chiefly 
of  the  mere  inculcation  of  traditional  opinions,  many  of 
which,  from  the  mere  fact  that  the  human  intellect 
has  not  yet  reached  perfection,  must  necessarily  be 
false ;  so  long  as  even  those  who  are  best  taught  are 
rather  taught  to  know  the  thoughts  of  others  than  to 
think,  —  it  is  not  always  clear  that  the  poet  of  acquired 
ideas  has  the  advantage  over  him  whose  feelino^  has 
been  his  sole  teacher.  For  the  depth  and  durability 
of  wrong  as  well  as  of  right  impressions  is  propor- 
tional to  the  fineness  of  the  material ;  and  they  who 
have  the  greatest  capacity  of  natural  feeling  are  gene- 
rally those  whose  artificial  feelings  are  the  strongest. 
Hence,  doubtless,  among  other  reasons,  it  is,  that,  in 
an  age  of  revolutions  in  opinion,  the  cotemporary  poets, 
those  at  least  who  deserve  the  name,  those  who  have 
any  individuality  of  character,  if  they  are  not  before 
their  age,  are  almost  sure  to  be  behind  it ;  an  observa- 
tion curiously  verified  all  over  Europe  in  the  present 
century.  Nor  let  it  be  thought  disparaging.  However 
urgent  may  be  the  necessity  for  a  breaking-up  of  old 
modes  of  belief,  the  most  strong-minded  and  discerning, 
next  to  those  who  head  the  movement,  are  generally 
those  who  bring  up  the  rear  of  it. 


121 


PROF.   SEDGWICK'S    DISCOURSE    ON    THE    STUDIES 
OF  THE  UmVERSITY  OF  CMIBRIDGE.* 


If  we  were  asked  for  what  end,  above  all  others,  en- 
dowed universities  exist,  or  ought  to  exist,  we  should 
answer,  "  To  keep  alive  philosophy."  This,  too,  is  the 
ground  on  which,  of  late  years,  our  own  national 
endowments  have  chiefly  been  defended.  To  educate 
common  minds  for  the  common  business  of  life,  a  pub- 
lic provision  may  be  useful,  but  is  not  indispensable ; 
nor  are  there  wanting  arguments,  not  conclusive,  yet  of 
considerable  strength,  to  show  that  it  is  undesirable. 
Whatever  individual  competition  does  at  all,  it  com- 
monly does  best.  All  things  in  which  the  public  are 
adequate  judges  of  excellence  are  best  supplied  where 
the  stimulus  of  individual  interest  is  the  most  active ; 
and  that  is  where  pay  is  in  proportion  to  exertion  :  not 
where  pay  is  made  sure  in  the  first  instance,  and  the 
only  security  for  exertion  is  the  superintendence  of  gov- 
ernment ;  far  less  where,  as  in  the  English  universities, 
even  that  security  has  been  successfully  excluded.  But 
there  is  an  education  of  which  it  cannot  be  pretended 
that  the  public  are  competent  judges, — the  education  by 
which  great  minds  are  formed.  To  rear  up  minds  with 
aspirations   and   faculties   above  the  herd,  capable  of 

*  London  Review,  April,  1835. 


122  PEOF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

leading  on  their  countrymen  to  gi'eater  achievements  in 
virtue,  intelligence,  and  social  well-being,  —  to  do  this, 
and  likewise  so  to  educate  the  leisured  classes  of  the 
community  generally,  that  they  may  participate  as  far  as 
possible  in  the  qualities  of  these  superior  spuits,  and  be 
prepared  to  appreciate  them  and  follow  in  their  steps,  — 
these  are  purposes  requiring  institutions  of  education 
placed  above  dependence  on  the  immediate  pleasure  of 
that  very  multitude  whom  they  are  designed  to  elevate. 
These  are  the  ends  for  which  endowed  universities  are 
desirable ;  they  are  those  which  all  endowed  universities 
profess  to  aim  at :  and  great  is  their  disgrace,  if,  haying 
undertaken  this  task,  and  claiming  credit  for  fulfilling  it, 
they  leave  it  unfulfilled. 

In  what  manner  are  these  purposes  —  the  greatest 
which  any  human  institution  can  propose  to  itself;  pur- 
poses which  the  English  universities  must  be  fit  for, 
or  they  are  fit  for  nothing  —  performed  by  thos6  univer- 
sities?     Circumspice. 

In  the  intellectual  pursuits  which  form  great  minds, 
this  country  was  formerly  pre-eminent.  England  once 
stood  at  the  head  of  European  philosophy.  Where 
stands  she  now?  Consult  the  general  opinion  of  Eu- 
rope. The  celebrity  of  England,  in  the  present  day, 
rests  upon  her  docks,  her  canals,  her  railroads.  In  in- 
tellect she  is  distinguished  only  for  a  kind  of  sober  good 
sense,  free  from  extravagance,  but  also  void  of  lofty 
aspirations ;  and  for  doing  all  those  things  which  are 
best  done  where  man  most  resembles  a  machine,  with 
the  precision  of  a  machine.  Valuable  qualities  doubt- 
less, but  not  precisely  those  by  which  mankind  raise 
themselves  to  the  perfection  of  their  nature,  or  achieve 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  123 

greater  and  greater  conquests  over  the  difficulties  which 
encumber  their  social  arrangements.  Ask  any  reflect- 
ing person  in  France  or  Germany  his  opinion  of  Eng- 
land :  whatever  may  be  his  own  tenets ;  however 
friendly  his  disposition  to  us ;  whatever  his  admiration 
of  our  institutions,  and  of  some  parts  of  our  national 
character ;  however  alive  to  the  faults  and  errors  of  his 
own  countrymen,  —  the  feature  which  always  strikes  him 
in  the  English  mind  is  the  absence  of  enlarged  and  com- 
manding views.  Every  question  he  finds  discussed  and 
decided  on  its  own  basis,  however  narrow,  without  any 
light  thrown  upon  it  from  principles  more  extensive  than 
itself;  and  no  question  discussed  at  all,  unless  Parlia- 
ment or  some  constituted  authority  is  to  be  moved 
to-morrow  or  the  day  after  to  put  it  to  the  vote.  In- 
stead of  the  ardor  of  research,  the  eagerness  for  large 
and  comprehensive  inquiry,  of  the  educated  part  of  the 
French  and  German  youth,  what  find  we  ?  Out  of  the 
narrow  bounds  of  mathematical  and  physical  science, 
not  a  vestige  of  a  reading  and  thinking  public  engaged 
in  the  investigation  of  truth  as  truth,  in  the  prosecution 
of  thought  for  the  sake  of  thought.  Among  few,  ex- 
cept sectarian  reUgionlsts,  —  and  what  they  are  we  all 
know,  —  is  there  any  interest  in  the  great  problem  of 
man's  nature  and  life  :  among  still  fewer  is  there  any 
curiosity  respecting  the  nature  and  principles  of  human 
society,  the  history  or  the  philosophy  of  civilization ; 
nor  any  belief,  that,  from  such  inquiries,  a  single  impor- 
tant practical  consequence  can  follow.  Guizot,  the 
greatest  admirer  of  England  among  the  Continental 
philosophers,  nevertheless  remarks,  that,  in  England, 
even  great  events  do  not,  as  they  do  everywhere  else, 


124  PROF.    SEDGWICK'S   DISCOURSE. 

inspire  great  ideas.     Things,  in  England,  are  greater 
than  the  men  who  accomplish  them. 

But  perhaps  this  degeneracy  is  the  eiFect  of  some 
cause  over  which  the  universities  had  no  control,  and 
against  which  they  have  been  ineffectually  struggling. 
If  so,  those  bodies  are  wonderfully  patient  of  being 
baffled.  Not  a  word  of  complaint  escapes  any  of  their 
leading  dignitaries ;  not  a  hint  that  their  highest  en- 
deavors are  thwarted,  their  best  labors  thrown  away ; 
not  a  symptom  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  intellectual 
state  of  the  national  mind,  save  when  it  discards  the 
borough-mongers,  lacks  zeal  for  the  Church,  or  calls  for 
the  admission  of  Dissenters  within  their  precincts.  On 
the  contrary,  perpetual  boasting  how  perfectly  they  suc- 
ceed in  accomplishing  all  that  they  attempt ;  endless 
celebrations  of  the  countiy's  glory  and  happiness  in 
possessing  a  youth  so  taught,  so  mindful  of  what  they 
are  taught.  When  any  one  presumes  to  doubt  whether 
the  universities  are  all  that  universities  should  be,  he  is 
not  told  that  they  do  their  best,  but  that  the  tendencies 
of  the  age  are  too  strong  for  them.  No  :  he  is,  with  an 
air  of  triumph,  referred  to  their  fruits,  and  asked 
whether  an  education,  which  has  made  English  gentle- 
men what  we  see  them,  can  be  other  than  a  good 
education.  All  is  right  so  long  as  no  one  speaks  of 
taking  away  their  endowments,  or  encroaching  upon 
their  monopoly.*  While  they  are  thus  eulogizing  their 
own  efforts,  and  the  results  of  their  efforts,  philosophy 
—  not  any  particular  school  of  philosophy,  but  philoso- 
phy altogether,  —  speculation   of  any   comprehensive 

*  Written  before  the  advent  of  the  present  comparatively  enlightened 
body  of  University  Reformers. 


I 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  125 

kind,  and  upon  any  deep  or  extensive  subject  —  has 
been  falling:  more  and  more  into  distastefulness  and  dis- 
repute  among  the  educated  classes  of  England.  Have 
those  classes,  meanwhile,  learned  to  slight  and  despise 
these  authorized  teachers  of  philosophy,  or  ceased  to 
frequent  their  schools?  Far  from  it.  The  universities, 
then,  may  flourish,  though  the  pursuits  which  are  the 
end  and  justification  of  the  existence  of  universities 
decay.  The  teacher  thrives,  and  is  in  honor,  while  that 
which  he  affects  to  teach  vanishes  from  among  man- 
kind. 

If  the  above  reflections  were  to  occur,  as  they  well 
might,  to  an  intelligent  foreigner,  deeply  interested  in 
the  condition  and  prospects  of  English  intellect,  we  may 
imagine  with  what  avidity  he  would  seize  upon  the  pub- 
lication before  us.  It  is  a  discourse  on  the  studies  of 
Cambridge,  by  a  Cambridge  professor,  delivered  to  a 
Cambridge  audience,  and  published  at  their  request.  It 
contains  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  most  liberal  members 
of  the  university  on  the  studies  of  the  place ;  or,  as  we 
should  rather  say,  on  the  studies  wliich  the  place  recom- 
mends, and  which  some  few  of  its  pupils  actually  prose- 
cute. Mr.  Sedgwick  is  not  a  mere  pedant  of  a  college, 
who  defends  the  system  because  he  has  been  formed  by 
the  system,  and  has  never  learned  to  see  any  thing  but  in 
the  light  in  which  the  system  showed  it  to  him.  Though 
an  intemperate,  he  is  not  a  bigoted,  partisan  of  the 
body  to  which  he  belongs  :  he  can  see  faults  as  well  as 
excellences,  not  merely  in  their  mode  of  teaching,  but 
in  some  parts  of  what  they  teach.  His  intellectual  pre- 
tensions, too,  are  high.    Not  of  him  can  it  be  said,  that 


126  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

he  aspires  not  to  philosophy  :  he  writes  in  the  character 
of  one  to  whom  its  loftiest  eminences  are  familiar. 
Curiosity,  therefore,  cannot  but  be  somewhat  excited  to 
know  what  he  finds  to  say  respecting  the  Cambridge 
scheme  of  education ;  and  what  notion  may  be  formed 
of  the  place  from  the  qualities  he  exhibits  in  himself, 
one  of  its  favorable  specimens. 

Whatever  be  the  value  of  Professor  Sedgwick's  Dis- 
course in  the  former  of  these  two  points  of  vdew,  in  the 
latter  we  have  found  it,  on  examination,  to  be  a  docu- 
ment of  considerable  importance.  The  professor  gives 
his  opinion  (for  the  benefit  chiefly,  he  says,  of  the 
younger  members  of  tlie  university,  but  in  a  manner, 
he  hopes,  "  not  altogether  unfitting  to  other  ears  ")  on 
the  value  of  several  great  branches  of  intellectual  cul- 
ture, and  on  the  spirit  in  which  they  should  be  pursued. 
Not  satisfied  wdth  this,  he  proclaims  in  his  preface 
another  and  a  stUl  more  ambitious  purpose,  —  the  de- 
struction of  what  has  been  termed  the  Utilitarian  theory 
of  morals.  "  He  has  attacked  the  utilitarian  theory  of 
morals,  not  merely  because  he  thinks  it  founded  on  false 
reasoning,  but  because  he  also  believes  that  it  produces 
a  degrading  eflfect  on  the  temper  and  conduct  of  those 
who  adopt  it." 

This  is  promising  great  things ;  to  refute  a  theory  of 
morals,  and  to  trace  its  influence  on  the  character  and 
actions  of  those  who  embrace  it.  A  better  test  of 
capacity  for  philosophy  could  not  be  desired.  We 
shall  see  how  Professor  Sedgwick  acquits  himself  of  his 
twofold  task,  and  what  w^ere  his  qualifications  for  un- 
dertaking it. 

From  an  author's  mode  of  introducing  his  subject, 


PROF.    SEDG^VICK'S   DISCOURSE.  127 

and  laying  the  outlines  of  it  before  the  reader,  some 
estimate  may  generally  be  formed  of  his  capacity  for 
discussing  it.  In  this  respect,  the  indications  afforded 
by  Mr.  Sedgwick's  commencement  are  not  favorable. 
Before  giving  his  opinion  of  the  studies  of  the  univer- 
sity, he  had  to  tell  us  what  those  studies  are.  They 
are,. first,  mathematical  and  physical  science  ;  secondly, 
the  classical  languages  and  literature ;  thirdly  (if  some 
small  matter  of  Locke  and  Paley  deserve  so  grand  a 
denomination),  mental  and  moral  science.  For  Mr. 
Sedgwick's  purpose,  this  simple  mode  of  designating 
these  studies  would  have  been  sufficiently  precise  ;  but, 
if  he  was  determined  to  hit  off  their  metaphysical  char- 
acteristics, it  should  not  have  been  in  the  following 
style :  — 

"  The  studies  of  this  place,  as  far  as  they  relate  to  mere 
human  learning,  divide  themselves  into  three  branches  :  First, 
The  study  of  the  laws  of  nature,  comprehending  all  parts  of 
inductive  philosophy.  Secondly,  The  study  of  ancient  litera- 
ture ;  or,  in  other  words,  of  those  authentic  records  which 
convey  to  us  an  account  of  the  feelings,  the  sentiments,  and 
the  actions  of  men  prominent  in  the  history  of  the  most 
famous  empires  of  the  ancient  world :  in  these  works  we  seek 
for  examples  and  maxims  of  prudence,  and  models  of  taste. 
Thii'dly,  The  study  of  oui'selves,  considered  as  individuals 
and  as  social  beings :  under  this  head  are  included  ethics  and 
metaphysics,  moral  and  political  philosophy,  and  some  other 
kindred  subjects  of  great  complexity,  hardly  touched  on  in 
our  academic  system,  and  to  be  followed  out  in  the  more 
mature  labors  of  after-life."  —  p.  10. 

How  many  errors  in  expression  and  classification  in 
one  short  passage  !  The  "  study  of  the  laws  of  nature  " 
is  spoken  of  as  one  thing ;  "  the  study  of  ourselves," 


128  PEOF.  Sedgwick's  discourse^ 

as  another.  In  studying  ourselves,  are  we  not  study- 
ing the  laws  of  our  nature?  "All  parts  of  inductive 
philosophy "  are  placed  under  one  head ;  "  ethics  and 
metaphysics,  moral  and  political  philosophy,"  under 
another.  Are  these  no  part  of  inductive  philosophy? 
Of  what  pliilosophy,  then,  are  they  a  part?  Is  not  all 
philosophy,  which  is  founded  upon  experience  and  ob- 
servation, inductive?*  What,  again,  can  Mr.  Sedg- 
wick mean  by  calling  "  ethics  "  one  thing,  and  "  moral 
philosophy  "  another  ?  Moral  philosophy  must  be  either 
ethics,  or  a  branch  of  metaphysics ;  either  the  knowl- 
edge of  our  duty,  or  the  theory  of  the  feelings  with 
which  we  regard  our  duty.  What  a  loose  description, 
too,  of  ancient  literature,  where  no  description  at  all 
was  required  !  The  writings  of  the  ancients  are  spoken 
of  as  if  there  were  nothing  in  them  but  the  biographies 
of  eminent  statesmen. 

This  want  of  power  to  express  accurately  what  is 
conceived,  almost  unerringly  denotes  inaccuracy  in  the 
conception  itself:  such  verbal  criticism,  therefore,  is  far 
from  unimportant.  But  the  topics  of  a  graver  kind, 
which  Mr.  Sedgv^dck's  Discourse  suggests,  are  fully 
sufficient  to  occupy  us ;  and  to  them  we  shall  henceforth 
confine  ourselves. 


*  It  is  just  to  Mr.  Sedgwick  to  subjoin  the  following  passage  from  the 
preface  to  a  later  edition  of  his  discourse :  — 

"  For  many  years,  it  has  been  the  habit  of  English  writers,  more  especial- 
ly those  who  have  been  trained  at  Cambridge,  to  apply  the  term  philosophy 
only  to  those  branches  of  exact  science  that  are  designated  on  the  Continent 
by  the  name  of  physics.  As  this  local  use  of  a  general  term  may  lead  to  a 
misapprehension  of  the  writer's  intentions,  it  would  be  well,  if,  in  the  follow- 
ing pages,  the  words  irulnctive  philosophy,  and  other  like  phrases,  were  accom- 
panied with  some  word  limiting  their  application  to  the  exact  physical 
sciences." 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  129 

The  professor's  survey  of  the  studies  of  the  univer- 
sity commences  with  "the  study  of  the  laws  of  nature," 
or,  to  speak  a  more  correct  language,  the  laws  of  the 
material  universe.  Here,  to  a  mind  stored  with  the 
results  of  comprehensive  thought,  there  lay  open  a 
boundless  field  of  remark,  of  the  kind  most  useful  to 
the  young  students  of  the  university.  At  the  stage  in 
education  which  they  are  supposed  to  have  reached,  the 
time  was  come  for  disengaging  their  minds  from  the 
microscopic  contemplation  of  the  details  of  the  various 
sciences,  and  elevating  them  to  the  idea  of  science  as  a 
whole,  — to  the  idea  of  human  culture  as  a  whole  ;  of 
the  place  which  those  various  sciences  occupy  in  the 
former,  and  the  functions  which  they  perform  in  the 
latter.  Though  an  actual  analysis  would  have  been 
impossible,  there  was  room  to  present,  in  a  rapid  sketch, 
the  results  of  an  analysis,  of  the  methods  of  the  various 
physical  sciences  ;  the  processes  by  which  they  severally 
arrive  at  truth ;  the  peculiar  logic  of  each  science,  and 
the  light  thrown  thereby  upon  universal  logic  ;  the  vari- 
ous kinds  and  degrees  of  evidence  upon  which  the  truths 
of  those  sciences  rest ;  how  to  estimate  them ;  how  to 
adapt  our  modes  of  investigation  to  them ;  how  far  the 
habits  of  estimating  evidence,  which  these  sciences  en- 
gender, are  applicable  to  other  subjects,  and  to  evidence 
of  another  kind ;  how  far  inapplicable.  Hence  the 
transition  was  easy  to  the  more  extensive  inquiry,  what 
these  physical  studies  are  capable  of  doing  for  the  mind  ; 
which  of  the  habits  and  powers  that  constitute  a  fine 
intellect  those  pursuits  tend  to  cultivate ;  what  are  those 
which  they  do  not  cultivate,  those  even  (for  such  there 
are)  which  they  tend  to  impede  ;  by  what  other  studies 


130  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

and  intellectual  exercises,  by  what  general  reflections, 
or  course  of  reading  or  meditation,  those  deficiencies 
may  be  supplied.  The  professor  might  thus  have 
shown  (what  it  is  usual  only  to  declaim  about)  how 
highly  a  familiarity  with  mathematics,  with  dynamics, 
with  even  experimental  physics  and  natural  history, 
conduces  both  to  strength  and  soundness  of  understand- 
ing ;  and  yet  how  possible  it  is  to  be  master  of  all  these 
sciences,  and  to  be  unable  to  put  two  ideas  together, 
with  a  useful  result,  on  any  other  topic.  The  youth  of 
the  university  might  have  been  taught  to  set  a  just  value 
on  these  attainments,  yet  to  see  in  them,  as  branches  of 
general  education,  what  they  really  are, — the  early 
stages  in  the  formation  of  a  superior  mind,  the  instru- 
ments of  a  higher  culture.  Nor  would  it  have  been  out 
of  place  in  such  a  discourse,  though  perhaps  not  pecu- 
liarly appropriate  to  this  part  of  it,  to  have  added  a  few 
considerations  on  the  tendency  of  scientific  pursuits  in 
general ;  the  influence  of  habits  of  analysis  and  abstrac- 
tion upon  the  character ;  how,  without  those  habits, 
the  mind  is  the  slave  of  its  own  accidental  associations, 
the  dupe  of  every  superficial  appearance,  and  fit  only 
to  receive  its  opinions  from  authority :  on  the  other 
hand,  how  their  exclusive  cultivation,  while  it  strengthens 
the  associations  which  connect  means  with  ends,  effects 
with  causes,  tends  to  weaken  many  of  those  upon  which 
our  enjoyments  and  our  social  feelings  depend ;  and  by 
accustoming  the  mind  to  consider,  in  objects,  chiefly  the 
properties  on  account  of  which  we  refer  them  to  classes, 
and  give  them  general  names,  leaves  our  conceptions 
of  them,  as  individuals,  lame  and  meagre ;  how,  there- 
fore, the  corrective  and  antagonist  principle  to  the  pur- 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  131 

suits  which  deal  with  objects  only  in  the  abstract  is  to 
be  sought  in  those  which  deal  with  them  altogether  in 
the  concrete,  clothed  in  properties  and  circumstances,  — 
real  life  in  its  most  varied  forms,  poetry  and  art  in  all 
their  branches. 

These,  and  many  kindred  topics,  a  true  philosopher, 
standing  in  the  pl^ce  of  Prof.  Sedgwick,  would,  as  far 
as  space  permitted,  have  illustrated  and  insisted  on. 
But  the  professor's  resources  supplied  him  only  with  a 
few  trite  commonplaces  on  the  high  privilege  of  com- 
prehending the  mysteries  of  the  natural  world ;  the 
value  of  studies  which  give  a  habit  of  abstraction,  and 
a  "  power  of  concentration  ;  "  the  use  of  scientific  pur- 
suits in  saving  us  from  languor  and  vacuity  ;  with  other 
truths  of  that  small  calibre.  To  these  he  adds,  that 
"  the  study  of  the  higher  sciences  is  well  suited  to  keep 
down  a  spirit  of  arrogance  and  intellectual  pride,"  by 
convincing  us  of  "  the  narrow  limitation  of  our  facul- 
ties ; "  and  upon  this  peg  he  appends  a  dissertation  on 
the  evidences  of  design  in  the  universe,  —  a  subject  on 
which  much  originality  was  not  to  be  hoped  for,  and 
the  nature  of  which  may  be  allowed  to  protect  feebleness 
from  any  severity  of  comment. 

The  professor's  next  topic  is  the  classical  languages 
and  literature.  And  here  he  begins  by  wondering.  It 
is  a  common  propensity  of  writers  on  natural  theology 
to  erect  every  thing  into  a  wonder.  They  cannot  con- 
sider the  greatness  and  wisdom  of  God,  once  for  all,  as 
proved,  but  think  themselves  bound  to  be  finding  fresh 
arguments  for  it  in  every  chip  or  stone ;  and  they  think 
nothing  a  proof  of  greatness  unless  they  can  wonder  at 
it ;  and,  to  most  minds,  a  wonder  explained  is  a  wonder 


132  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discouese. 

no  longer.  Hence  a  sort  of  vague  feeling,  as  if,  to  their 
conceptions,  God  would  not  be  so  great  if  he  had  made 
us  capable  of  understanding  more  of  the  laws  of  his 
universe ;  and  hence  a  reluctance  to  admit  even  the 
most  obvious  explanation,  lest  it  should  destroy  the 
wonder. 

The  subject  of  Prof.  Sedgwick's  wonder  is  a  very 
simple  thing,  —  the  manner  in  which  a  child  acquires  a 
lanffuao-e. 

"  I  may  recall  to  your  minds,"  says  he,  "  the  wonderful  ease 
with  which  a  child  comprehends  the  conventional  signs  of 
thought  formed  between  man  anff  man,  —  not  only  learns  the 
meaning  of  words  descriptive  of  visible  things,  but  under- 
stands, by  a  kind  of  rational  instinct,  the  meaning  of  abstract 
terms,  without  ever  thinking  of  the  faculty  by  which  he  comes 
to  separate  them  from  the  names  of  mere  objects  of  sense. 
The  readiness  with  which  a  child  acquires  a  language  may 
well  be  called  a  rational  instinct ;  for  during  the  time  that  his 
knowledge  is  built  up,  and  that  he  learns  to  handle  the  imple- 
ments of  thought,  he  knows  no  more  of  what  passes  within 
himself  than  he  does  of  the  structure  of  the  eye  or  of  the 
properties  of  light,  while  he  attends  to  the  impressions  on  his 
visual  sense,  and  gives  to  each  impression  its  appropriate 
name."  —  p.  33. 

If  whatever  we  do,  without  understanding  the  ma- 
chinery by  which  we  do  it,  be  done  by  a  rational  instinct, 
we  learn  to  dance  by  instinct ;  since  few  of  the  dancing- 
master's  pupils  have  ever  heard  of  any  one  of  the 
muscles  which  his  instructions  and  their  own  sedulous 
practice  give  them  the  power  to  use.  Do  we  grow 
wheat  by  "  a  rational  instinct,"  because  we  know  not 
how  the  seed  germinates  in  the  ground  ?     We  know  by 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  133 

experience,  not  by  instinct,  that  it  does  germinate ;  and 
on  that  assurance  we  sow  it.  A  child  learns  a  language 
by  the  ordinary  laws  of  association,  —  by  hearing  the 
word  spoken  on  the  various  occasions  on  which  the 
meaning  denoted  by  it  has  to  be  conveyed.  This  mode 
of  acquisition  is  better  adapted  for  giving  a  loose  and 
vague,  than  a  precise,  conception  of  the  meaning  of  an 
abstract  term  :  accordingly,  most  people's  conceptions 
of  the  meaning  of  many  abstract  terms  in  common  use 
remain  always  loose  and  vague.  The  rapidity  with 
which  children  learn  a  language  is  not  more  wonderful 
than  the  rapidity  with  which  they  learn  so  much  else  at 
an  early  age.  It  is  a  common  remark,  that  we  gain 
more  knowledge  in  the  first  few  years  of  life,  without 
labor,  than  we  ever  after  acquire  by  the  hardest  toil ;  in 
double  the  time.  There  are  many  causes  to  account 
for  this ;'  among  wliich  it  is  sujfficient  to  specify,  that 
much  of  the  knowledge  we  then  acquire  concerns  our 
most  pressing  wants,  and  that  our  attention  to  outward 
impressions  is  not  yet  deadened  by  famiharity,  nor 
distracted,  as  in  grown  persons,  by  a  previously  accu- 
mulated stock  of  inward  feelings  and  ideas. 

Against  the  general  tendency  of  the  professor's  re- 
marks on  the  cultivation  of  the  ancient  languages,  there 
is  little  to  be  said.  We  think,  with  him,  that  "  our 
fathers  have  done  well  in  making  classical  studies  an 
early  and  prominent  part  of  liberal  education"  (p.  34). 
We  fully  coincide  in  his  opinion,  that  "  the  philosophi- 
cal and  ethical  works  of  the  ancients  deserve  a  much 
larger  portion  of  our  time  than  we"  (meaning  Cam- 
bridge) "have  hitherto  bestowed  on  them"  (p.  39). 
We  commend  the  liberality  (for,  in  a  professor  of  an 


134  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

English  university,  the  liberality  which  admits  the 
smallest  fault  in  the  university  system  of  tuition  de- 
serves to  be  accounted  extraordinary)  of  the  following 
remarks  :  — 

"  It  is  notorious,  that  during  many  past  years,  while  verbal 
criticism  has  been  pursued  with  so  much  ardor,  the  works  to 
which  I  now  allude  (coming  home,  as  they  do,  to  the  business 
of  life ;  and  pregnant,  as  they  are,  with  knowledge  well  fitted 
to  fortify  the  reasoning  powers)  have,  by  the  greater  number 
of  us,  hardly  been  thought  of,  and  have  in  no  instance  been 
made  prominent  subjects  of  academic  training."  —  p.  39. 

"  I  think  it  incontestably  true,  that,  for  the  last  fifty  years, 
our  classical  studies  (with  much  to  demand  our  undivided 
praise)  have  been  too  critical  and  formal ;  and  that  we  have 
sometimes  been  taught,  while  straining  after  an  accuracy 
beyond  our  reach,  to  value  the  husk  more  than  the  fruit  of 
ancient  learning :  and  if,  of  late  years,  our  younger  members 
have  sometimes  written  prose  Greek  almost  with  the  purity 
of  Xenophon,  or  composed  iambics  in  the  finished  diction  of 
the  Attic  poets,  we  may  well  doubt  whether  time  sufiices  for 
such  perfection ;  whether  the  imagination  and  the  taste  might 
not  be  more  wisely  cultivated  than  by  a  long  sacrifice  to  what, 
after  all,  ends  but  in  verbal  imitations;  in  short,  whether 
such  acquisitions,  however  beautiful  in  themselves,  are  not 
gained  at  the  expense  of  something  better.  This,  at  least,  is 
true,  —  that  he  who  forgets  that  language  is  but  the  sign  and 
vehicle  of  thought,  and,  while  studying  the  word,  knows 
little  of  the  sentiment ;  who  learns  the  measure,  the  garb 
and  fashion,  of  ancient  song,  without  looking  to  its  living  soul 
or  feeling  its  inspiration, — is  not  one  jot  better  than  a  travel- 
ler in  classic  land,  who  sees  its  crumbling  temples,  and  num- 
bers with  arithmetical  precision  their  steps  and  pillars,  but 
thinks  not  of  their  beauty,  their  design,  or  the  living  sculp- 
tures on  their  walls ;  or  who  counts  the  stones  in  the  Appian 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  135 

Way,  instead  of  gazing  on  the  monuments  of  the  'eternal 
city.'"  — pp.  37^8. 

The  illustration  which  closes  the  above  passage 
(though,  as  is  often  the  case  with  illustrations,  it  does 
not  illustrate)  is  rather  ^^retty ;  a  circumstance  which 
we  should  be  sorry  not  to  notice,  as,  amid  much  strain- 
ing, and  many  elaborate  flights  of  imagination,  we  have 
not  met  with  any  other  instance  in  which  the  professor 
makes  so  near  an  approach  to  actual  eloquence. 

We  have  said  that  we  go  all  lengths  with  our  author 
in  claiming  for  classical  literature  a  place  in  education, 
at  least  equal  to  that  commonly  assigned  to  it.  But, 
though  we  think  his  opinion  right,  we  think  most  of  his 
reasons  wrong ;  as,  for  example,  the  following :  — 

"  With  individuals  as  with  nations,  the  powei-s  of  imagina- 
tion reach  their  maturity  sooner  than  the  powers  of  reason ; 
and  this  is  another  proof  that  the  severer  investigations  of 
science  ought  to  be  preceded  by  the  study  of  languages,  and 
especially  of  those  great  works  of  imagination  which  have  be- 
come a  pattern  for  the  literature  of  every  civilized  tongue."  — 
p.  34. 

This  dictutn  respecting  Imagination  and  Reason  is 
only  not  a  truism,  because  it  is,  as  Coleridge  would  say, 
a  falsism.  Does  the  professor  mean  that  "  any  great 
work  of  imagination"  —  the  "Paradise  Lost,"  for  in- 
stance—  could  have  been  produced  at  an  earlier  age,  or 
by  a  less  matured  or  less  accomplished  mind,  than  the 
"  M^canique  Celeste  "  ?  Does  he  mean  that  a  learner 
can  appreciate  ^Eschylus  or  Sophocles  before  he  is  old 
enough  to  understand  Euclid  or  Lacroix?  In  nations, 
again,  the  assertion,  that  imagination,  in  any  but  the 


136  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

vulgarest  sense  of  the  word,  attains  maturity  sooner 
than  reason,  is  so  far  from  being  correct,  that,  through- 
out all  history,  the  two  have  invariably  flourished 
together  ;  have,  and  necessarily  must.  Does  Mr.  Sedg- 
wick think  that  any  great  work  of  imagination  ever  was 
or  can  be  produced  without  great  powers  of  reason? 
Be  the  country  Greece  or  Rome,  Italy,  France,  or 
England,  the  age  of  her  greatest  eminence  in  poetry 
and  the  fine  arts  has  been  that  of  her  greatest  states- 
men, generals,  orators,  historians,  navigators,  —  in 
one  word,  thinkers  in  every  department  of  active  life ; 
not,  indeed,  of  her  greatest  philosophers,  but  only 
because  philosophy  is  the  tardiest  product  of  reason 
itself.  * 

Of  the  true  reasons  (and  there  are  most  substantial 
and  cogent  ones)  for  assigning  to  classical  studies  a 
high  place  in  general  education,  we  find  not  a  word  in 
Mr.  Sedgwick's  tract ;  but,  instead  of  them,  much  harp- 
ing on  the  value  of  the  writings  of  antiquity  as  "  pat- 
terns "  and  "  models."  Tliis  is  lauding  the  abuse  of 
classical  knowledge  as  the  use,  and  is  a  very  bad  lesson 
to  "  the  younger  members "  of  the  university.  The 
study  of  the  ancient  writers  has  been  of  unspeakable 
benefit  to  the  moderns  ;  from  which  benefit  the  attempts 
at  direct  imitation  of  those  writers  have  been  no  triflino: 
drawback.     The  necessary  effect  of  imitating  "  models  " 

*  In  the  earlier  stages  of  a  nation's  culture,  the  place  of  philosophy  is 
always  pre-occupied  by  an  established  religion:  all  the  more  interesting 
questions  to  which  philosophy  addresses  itself  find  a  solution  satisfactory 
to  the  then  state  of  human  intellect,  ready  provided  by  the  received  creed. 
The  old  religion  must  have  lost  its  hold  on  the  more  cultivated  minds  before 
philosophy  is  applied  to  for  a  solution  of  the  same  questions.  With  the 
decline  of  Polytheism  came  the  Greek  philosophy;  with  the  decline  of 
Catholicism,  the  modem. 


PROF.    SEDG^VICK's   DISCOURSE.  137 

is  to  set  mamier  above  matter.  The  imitation  of  the 
classics  has  perverted  the  whole  taste  of  modern  Europe 
on  the  subject  of  composition :  it  has  made  style  a 
subject  of  cultivation  and  of  praise,  independently  of 
ideas  ;  whereas,  by  the  ancients,  style  was  never  thought 
of  but  in  complete  subordination  to  matter.  The  an- 
cients, in  the  good  times  of  their  literature,  would  a-s 
soon  have  thought  of  a  coat  in  the  abstract  as  of  style 
in  the  abstract :  the  merit  of  a  style,  in  their  eyes,  was, 
that  it  exactly  fitted  the  thought.  Their  first  aim 
was,  by  the  assiduous  study  of  their  subject,  to  secure 
to  themselves  thoughts  worth  expressing :  their  next 
was  to  find  words  which  would  convey  those  thoughts 
with  the  utmost  degree  of  nicety ;  and  only  when  this 
was  made  sure  did  they  think  of  ornament.  Their 
style,  therefore,  whether  ornamented  or  plain,  grows  out 
of  their  turn  of  thought ;  and  may  be  admired,  but  can- 
not be  imitated,  by  any  one  whose  turn  of  thought  is 
diflferent.  The  instruction  which  Prof.  Sedgwick  should 
have  given  to  his  pupils  was  to  follow  no  models ;  to 
attempt  no  style,  but  let  their  thoughts  shape  out  the 
style  best  suited  to  them ;  to  resemble  the  ancients,  not 
by  copying  their  manner,  but  by  understanding  their 
own  subject  as  well,  cultivating  their  faculties  as  highly, 
and  taking  as  much  trouble  with  their  work,  as  the 
ancients  did.  All  imitation  of  an  author's  style,  except 
that  which  arises  from  making  his  thoughts  our  own,  is 
mere  affectation  and  vicious  mannerism. 

In  discussing:  the  value  of  the  ancient  lanjniages,  Mr. 
Sedgwick  touches  upon  the  importance  of  ancient  his- 
tory. On  this  topic,  on  which  so  much,  and  of  the 
most  interesting  kind,  might  have  been  said,  he  delivers 


138  PEOF.  Sedgwick's  discouese. 

nothing  but  questionable  commonplaces.      "History," 
says  he,   "  is,  to  our  knowledge  of  man  in  his  social 
capacity,  what  physical  experiments  are  to  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  laws  of  nature"  (p.  42).     Common  as  this 
notion  is,  it  is  a  strange  one  to  be  held  by  a  professor 
of  physical  science  ;  for  assuredly  no  person  is  satisfied 
with  such  evidence  in  studying  the  laws  of  the  natural 
world  as  history  affords  with  respect  to  the  laws  of 
political    society.       The   evidence    of  history,    instead 
of  being  analogous  to  that  of  experiment,  leaves  the 
philosophy  of  society  in  exactly  the  state  in  which  phys- 
ical science  was  befc^re  the  method  of  experiment  was 
introduced.     The  professor  should  reflect,  that  we  can- 
not make  experiments  in   history.     We  are  obliged, 
therefore,  as  the  ancients  did  in  physics,  to  content  our- 
selves with  such  experiments  as  we  find  made  to  our 
hands  ;  and  these  are  so  few  and  so  complicated,  that 
little  or  nothing  can  be  inferred  from  them.     There  is 
not  a  fact  in  history  which  is  not  susceptible  of  as  many 
different  explanations  as  there  are  possible  theories  of 
human   affairs.      Not  only   is    history  not  the    source 
of  political    philosophy,   but  the  profoundest  political 
philosophy  is  requisite  to  explain  history :   without  it, 
all  In  history,  which  is  worth  understanding,  remains 
mysterious.     Can  Mr.  Sedgwick  explain  why  the  Greeks, 
in  their  brief  career,  so  far  surj^assed  their  cotempora- 
ries,  or  why  the  Romans  conquered  the  world?     Mr. 
Sedgwick  mistakes  the  functions  of  history  in  political 
speculation.      History  is  not  the  foundation,   but  the 
verification,  of  the  social  science :  it  corroborates,  and 
often  suggests,  political  truths,  but  cannot  prove  them. 
The  proof  of  them  is  drawn  from  the  laws  of  human 


PKOF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  139 

nature,  ascertained  through  the  study  of  ourselves  by 
reflection,  and  of  mankind  by  actual  intercourse  with 
them.  That  what  we  know  of  former  ages,  like  what 
we  know  of  foreign  nations,  is,  with  all  its  imperfec- 
tions, of  much  use,  by  correcting  the  narrowness  inci- 
dent to  personal  experience,  is  undeniable ;  but  the 
usefulness  of  history  depends  upon  its  being  kept  in 
the  second  place. 

The  professor  seems  wholly  unaware  of  the  impor- 
tance of  accuracy,  either  in  thought  or  in  expression. 
"In  ancient  history,"  says  he  (p.  42),  "we  can  trace 
the  fortunes  of  mankind  under  almost  every  condition 
of  political  and  social  life."  So  far  is  this  from  being 
true,  that  ancient  history  does  not  so  much  as  furnish 
an  example  of  a  civilized  people  in  which  the  bulk  of 
the  inhabitants  were  not  slaves.  Again  :  "  All  the  suc- 
cessive actions  we  contemplate  are  at  such  a  distance 
fi-om  us,  that  we  can  see  their  true  bearings  on  each 
other  undistorted  by  that  mist  of  prejudice  with  which 
every  modern  political  question  is  surrounded."  We 
appeal  to  all  who  are  conversant  with  the  modern  writ- 
ings on  ancient  history,  whether  even  this  is  triie.  The 
most  elaborate  Grecian  history  which  we  possess  is  im- 
pregnated with  the  anti-Jacobin  spirit  in  every  line  ;  and 
the  "  Quarterly  Review  "  labored  as  diligently  for  many 
years  to  vilify  the  Athenian  republic  as  the  American. 

Thus  far,  the  faults  which  we  have  discovered  in  Mr. 
Sedgwick  are  of  omission  rather  than  of  commission ; 
or,  at  worst,  amount  only  to  this,  that  he  has  contented 
himself  with  repeating  the  trivialities  he  found  current. 
Had  there  been  nothing  but  this  to  be  said  of  the  re- 


140  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

mainder  of  the  Discourse,  we  should  not  have  disturbed 
Its  peaceful  progress  to  oblivion. 

We  have  now,  however,,  arrived  at  the  opening  of 
that  part  of  Prof.  Sedgwick's  Discourse  which  is  most 
labored,  and  for  the  sake  of  which  all  the  rest  may  be 
surmised  to  have  been  written,  —  his  strictures  on 
Locke's  "Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding,"  and 
Paley's  "Principles  of  Moral  Philosophy."  These 
works  comprise  what  little  of  ethical  and  metaphysical 
instruction  is  given,  or*  professed  to  be  given,  at  Cam- 
bridge. The  remainder  of  Mr.  Sedjjwick's  Discourse 
is  devoted  to  an  attack  upon  them. 

We  assuredly  have  no  thought  of  defending  either 
work  as  a  text-book,  still  less  as  the  sole  text-book,  on 
their  respective  subjects,  in  any  school  of  philosophy. 
Of  Paley's  work,  though  it  possesses  in  a  high  degree 
some  minor  merits,  we  think,  on  the  whole,  meanly. 
Of  Locke's  Essay,  the  beginning  and  foundation  of 
the  modern  analytical  psychology,  we  cannot  speak  but 
with  the  deepest  reverence,  whether  we  consider  the  era 
which  it  constitutes  in  philosophy,  the  intrinsic  value, 
even  at  the  present  day,  of  its  thoughts,  or  the  noble 
devotion  to  truth,  the  beautiful  and  touching  earnestness 
and  simplicity,  which  he  not  only  manifests  in  himself, 
but  has  the  power,  beyond  almost  all  other  philosophical 
writers,  of  infusing  into  his  reader.  His  Essay  should 
be  familiar  to  every  student.  But  no  work  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  old  can  be  fit  to  be  the  sole,  or  even  the 
principal,  work  for  the  instruction  of  youth  in  a  science 
like  that  of  Mind.  In  metaphysics,  every  new  truth 
sets  aside  or  modifies  much  of  what  was  previously  re- 
ceived as  truth.     Berkeley's  refutation  of  the  doctrine 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  141 

of  abstract  ideas  would  of  itself  necessitate  a  complete 
revision  of  the  phraseology  of  the  most  valuable  parts 
of  Locke's  book  ;  and  the  important  speculations  origi- 
nated by  Hume,  and  improved  by  Brown,  concerning 
the  nature  of  our  experience,  are  acknowledged,  even 
by  the  philosophers  who  do  not  adopt,  in  their  full  ex- 
tent, the  conclusions  of  those  writers,  to  have  carried 
the  analysis  of  our  knowledge,  and  of  the  process  of 
acquiring  it,  so  much  beyond  the  point  where  Locke 
left  it,  as  to  require  that  his  work  should  be  entirely 
recast. 

Moreover,  the  book  which  has  changed  the  face  of 
a  science,  even  when  not  superseded  in  its  doctrines,  is 
seldom  suitable  for  didactic  purposes.  It  is  adapted 
to  the  state  of  mind,  not  of  those  who  are  ignorant 
of  every  doctrine,  but  of  those  who  are  instructed  in  an 
erroneous  doctrine.  So  far  as  it  is  taken  up  with 
directly  combating  the  errors  which  prevailed  before  il 
was  written,  the  more  completely  it  has  done  its  work, 
the  more  certain  it  is  of  becoming  superfluous,  not  to 
say  unintelligible,  without  a  commentary.  And  even 
its  positive  truths  are  defended  against  such  objections 
only  as  were  current  in  its  own  times,  and  guarded  only 
against  such  misunderstandings  as  the  people  of  those 
times  were  likely  to  fall  into.  Questions  of  morals  and 
metaphysics  differ  from  physical  questions  in  this,  that 
their  aspect  changes  with  every  change  in  the  human 
mind.  At  no  two  periods  is  the  same  question  embar- 
rassed by  the  same  difficulties,  or  the  same  truth  in 
need  of  the  same  explanatory  comment.  The  fallacy 
which  is  satisfactorily  refuted  in  one  age  re-appears  in 
another,  in  a  shape  which  the  arguments  formerly  used 


142  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discouese. 

do  not  precisely  meet ;  and  seems  to  triumph,  until 
some  one,  with  weapons  suitable  to  the  altered  form  of 
the  error,  arises,  and  repeats  its  overthrow. 

These  remai-ks  are  peculiarly  applicable  to  Locke's 
Essay.  His  doctrines  were  new,  and  had  to  make  their 
way :  he  therefore  wrote,  not  for  learners,  but  for  the 
learned  ;  for  men  who  were  trained  in  the  systems  ante- 
cedent to  his, — in  those  of  the  Schoolmen  or  of  the 
Cartesians.  He  said  what  he  thought  necessary  to 
establish  his  own  opinions,  and  answered  the  objections 
of  such  objectors  as  the  age  afforded :  but  he  could  not 
anticipate  all  the  objections  which  might  be  made  by  a 
subsequent  age ;  least  of  all  could  he  anticipate  those 
which  would  be  made  now,  when  his  philosophy  has 
long  been  the  prevalent  one ;  when  the  arguments  of 
objectors  have  been  rendered  as  far  as  possible  con- 
sistent with  his  principles,  and  are  often  such  as  could 
not  have  been  thought  of  untU  he  had  cleared  the 
ground  by  demolishing  some  received  opinion,  which  no 
one  before  him  had  thought  of  disputing.* 

*  As  an  example,  and  one  which  is  in  point  to  Mr.  Sedgwick's  attack,  let 
us  take  Locke's  refutation  of  innate  ideas.  The  doctrine  maintained  in  his 
time,  and  against  which  his  arguments  are  directed,  was,  that  there  are  ideas 
which  exist  in  the  mind  antecedently  to  experience.  Of  this  theory  his 
refutation  is  complete,  and  the  error  has  never  again  reared  its  head.  But 
a  form  of  the  same  doctrine  has  since  arisen,  somewhat  different  from  the 
above,  and  which  could  not  have  been  thought  of  until  Locke  had  established 
the  dependence  of  all  our  knowledge  upon  experience.  In  this  modem 
theory,  it  is  admitted  that  experience,  or,  in  other  words,  impressions 
received  from  without,  must  precede  the  excitement  of  anj-  ideas  in  the 
mind;  no  ideas,  therefore,  exist  in  the  mind  antecedently  to  experience, 
but  there  are  some  ideas  (so  the  theory  contends),  which,  though  experience 
must  precede  them,  are  not  likenesses  of  any  thing  which  we  have  experi- 
ence of,  but  are  only  suggested  or  excited  by  it,  —  ideas  which  are  only  so  far 
the  effects  of  outward  impressions,  that  they  would  for  ever  lie  dormant  if  no 
outward  impressions  were  ever  made.     Experience,  in  short,  is  a  necessiry 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  143 

To  attack  Locke,  therefore,  because  other  argumeuis 
than  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  use  have  become  requi- 
site to  the  support  of  some  of  his  conclusions,  is  like 
reproaching  the  evangelists  because  they  did  not  write 
"Evidences  of  Christianity."  The  question  is,  not  what 
Locke  has  said,  but  what  would  he  have  said  if  he  had 
heard  all  that  has  since  been  said  against  him  ?  Un- 
reasonable, however,  as  is  a  criticism  on  Locke  con- 
ceived in  this  spirit,  Mr.  Sedgwick  indulges  in  another 
strain  of  criticism  even  more  unreasonable. 

The  "  greatest  fault,"  he  says,  of  Locke's  Essay, 
is  the  contracted  view  it  takes  of  the  capacities  of  man, 
—  allowing  him,  indeed,  the  faculty  of  reflecting,  and 
following  out  trains  of  thought  according  to  the  rules 
of  abstract  reasoning,  but  depriving  him  both  of  his 

condition  of  those  ideas,  but  not  their  prototype  or  their  cause.  One  of  these 
ideas,  they  contend,  is  the  idea  of  substance  or  matter,  which  is  no  copy  of 
any  sensation:  neither,  on  the  other  hand,  should  we  ever  have  had  this 
notion,  if  we  had  never  had  sensations ;  but,  as  soon  as  any  sensation  is 
experienced,  we  ar%  compelled  by  a  law  of  our  nature  to  form  the  idea  of  an 
external  something  (which  we  call  matter),  and  to  refer  the  sensation  to  this 
as  its  exciting  cause.  Such,  it  is  likewise  contended,  are  the  idea  of  duty, 
and  the  moral  judgments  and  feelings.  We  do  not  bijng  with  us  into  the 
world  any  idea  of  a  criminal  act ;  it  is  only  experience  which  gives  us  that 
idea:  but,  the  moment  we  conceive  the  act,  we  instantly,  by  the  constitution 
of  our  nature,  judge  it  to  be  wrong,  and  frame  the  idea  of  an  obligation  to 
abstain  from  it. 

This  form  of  the  doctrine  of  innate  principles,  Locke  did  not  anticipate, 
and  has  not  supplied  the  means  of  completely  refuting.  Mr.  Sedgwick 
accordingly  triumphs  over  him,  as  having  missed  his  mark  by  overlooking 
the  "distinction  between  innate  ideas  and  innate  capacities"  (p.  48).  If 
Locke  has  not  adverted  to  a  distinction  which  probably  had  never  been 
thought  of  in  his  day,  others  have ;  and  no  one  who  now  writes  on  the  sub- 
ject ever  overlooks  it.  Has  Mr.  Sedgwick  ever  read  Hartley  or  Mill,  or 
even  Hume  or  Helvetius  ?  Apparently  not :  he  shows  no  signs  of  having 
read  any  writer  on  the  side  of  the  question  which  he  attacks,  except  Locke 
and  Paley,  whom  he  insists  upon  treating  as  the  representatives  of  all  others 
who  adopt  any  of  their  conclusions. 


144  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

powers  of  imagination  and  of  his  moral  sense"  (p.  57). 
Several  pages  are  thereupon  employed  in  celebrating 
"  the  imaginative  powers ;  "  and  a  metaphysician  who 
"discards  these  powers  from  his  system"  (which,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Sedgwick,  Locke  does)  is  accused  of 
"  shutting  his  eyes  to  the  loftiest  qualities  of  the  soul " 
(p.  49). 

Has  the  professor  so  far  forgotten  the  book  which  he 
must  have  read  once,  and  on  which  he  passes  judgment 
with  so  much  authority,  as  to  fancy  that  it  claims  to  be 
a  treatise  on  all  "  the  capacities  of  man  "  ?  Can  he 
write  in  the  manner  we  have  just  quoted  about  Locke's 
book,  with  the  fact  looking  him  in  the  face  from  his 
own  pages,  that  it  is  entitled  "An  Essay  on  the  Human 
Understandino; "  ?  Who  besides  Mr.  Sedgwick  would 
look  for  a  treatise  on  the  imagination  under  such  a  title  ? 
What  place,  what  concern,  could  it  have  had  there? 

The  one  object  of  Locke's  speculations  was  to  ascer- 
tain the  limits  of  our  knowledge ;  what  questions  we 
may  hope  to  solve,  what  are  beyond  our  reach.  This 
purpose  is  announced  in  the  preface,  and  manifested 
in  every  chapter  of  the  book.  He  declares  that  he 
commenced  his  inquiries,  because,  "  in  discoursing 
on  a  subject  very  remote  from  this,"  it  came  into  his 
thoughts,  that,  "before  we  set  ourselves  upon  inquiries 
of  that  nature,  it  was  necessary  to  examine  our  own 
abilities,  and  see  what  objects  our  understandings  w^ere, 
or  were  not,  fitted  to  deal  with."  *  The  following, 
from  the  first  chapter  of  the  first  book,  are  a  few  of  the 
passages  in  which  he  describes  the  scope  of  his  specula- 
tions :  — 

*  Preface  to  Locke's  Essay. 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  145 

"To  inquire  into  the  original,  certainty,  and  extent  of 
human  knowledge,  together  with  the  grounds  and  degrees 
of  belief,  opinion,  and  assent."  "  To  consider  the  discerning 
faculties  of  man,  as  they  are  employed  about  the  objects  which 
they  have  to  do  with."  "  To  give  an  account  of  the  ways 
whereby  our  understandings  come  to  attain  those  notions  of 
things  we  have,"  and  "  set  down  "  some  '"  measures  of  the  cer- 
tainty of  our  knowledge,  or  the  grounds  of  those  persua-ions 
which  are  to  be  found  amongst  men."  "  To  search  out  the 
bounds  between  opinion  and  knowledgt;,  and  examine  by  what 
measures,  in  things  whereof  we  have  no  certain  knowledge, 
we  ought  to  regulate  our  assent,  and  moderate  our  persua- 
sions." And,  "  by  this  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  under- 
standing," to  "  discover  the  powers  thereof,  how  far  they 
reach,  to  what  things  they  are  in  any  degree  proportionate, 
and  where  they  fail  us ; "  and  thereby  to  "  prevail  with  the 
busy  mind  of  man  to  be  more  cautious  in  meddling  with 
things  exceeding  its  comprehension;  to  stop  when  it  is  at  the 
utmost  extent  of  its  tether,  and  to  sit  down  in  a  quiet  igno- 
rance of  those  things,  which,  upon  examination,  are  found  to 
be  beyond  the  reach  of  our  capacities." 

And  because  a  philosopher,  having  placed  before 
himself  an  undertaking  of  this  magnitude,  and  of  this 
strictly  scientific  character,  and  having  his  mind  full  of 
thoughts  which  were  destined  to  effect  a  revolution  in 
the  philosophy  of  the  human  intellect,  does  not  quit  his 
subject  to  panegyrize  the  imagination,  he  is  accused 
of  saying  that  there  is  no  such  thing ;  or  of  saying  that 
it  is  a  pernicious  thing ;  or  rather  (for  to  this  pitch  of 
ingenuity  Mr.  Sedgwick's  criticism  reaches)  of  saying 
both  that  there  is  no  such  thing,  and  also  that  it  is  a 
pernicious  thing.  He  ^^  deprives  man  of  his  powers 
of  imagination ;  "  he  "  discards  these  powers  from  his 

VOL.  I.  10 


146  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

system,"  and,  at  the  same  time,  he  "speaks  of  those 
powers  only  to  condemn  them ;  "  he  "  denounces  the 
exercise  of  the  imagination  as  a  fraud  upon  the  reason." 
As  well  might  it 'be  asserted,  that  Locke  denies  that 
man  has  a  body,  or  condemns  the  exercise  of  the  body, 
because  he  is  not  constantly  proclaiming  what  a  beautiful 
and  glorious  thing  the  body  is.  Mr.  Sedgwick  cannot 
conceive  the  state  of  mind  of  such  a  man  as  Locke,  who 
is  too  entirely  absorbed  in  his  subject  to  be  able  to  turn 
aside  from  it  every  time  that  an  opportunity  offers  for 
a  flight  of  rhetoric.  With  the  imagination  in  its  own 
province,  as  a  source  of  enjoyment,  and  a  means  of 
educating  the  feelings,  Locke  had  nothing  to  do,  nor 
was  the  subject  suited  to  the  character  of  his  mind. 
He  was  concerned  with  Imagination,  only  in  the  pro- 
vince of  pure  intellect ;  and  all  he  had  to  do  with  it 
there  was  to  warn  it  off  the  ground.  This  Mr.  Sedg- 
wick calls  "  denouncing  the  exercise  of  the  imagination 
as  a  fraud  upon  the  reason,"  and  "  regarding  men  who 
appeal  to  the  powers  of  imagination  in  their  proofs,  and 
mingle  them  in  their  exhortations,  as  no  better  than 
downright  cheats"  (p.  50).  Locke  certainly  says  that 
imagination  is  not  proof.  Does  the  professor,  then, 
mean,  and,  by  his  rhapsody  about  the  imagination, 
does  he  intend  us  to  understand,  that  imagination  is 
proof?  But  how  can  we  expect  clearness  of  ideas  on 
metaphysical  subjects  from  a  writer  who  cannot  dis- 
criminate between  the  understanding  and  the  will? 
Locke's  Essay  is  on  the  understanding  :  Mr.  Sedgwick 
tells  us,  with  much  finery  of  language,  that  the  imagi- 
nation is  a  powerful  engine  for  acting  on  the  will.  So 
is  a  cat-o'-nine  tails.     Is  a  cat-o '-nine-tails,  therefore, 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  147 

one  of  the  sources  of  human  knowledge  ?  "  In  trymg 
circumstances,"  says  the  professor,  "  the  determination 
of  the  will  is  often  more  by  feeling  than  by  reason " 
(p.  51).  In  all  circumstances,  trying  or  otherwise, 
the  determination  of  the  will  is  wholly  by  feeling. 
Reason  is  not  an  end  in  itself:  it  teaches  us  to  know 
the  right  ends,  and  the  way  to  them  ;  but,  if  we  desire 
those  ends,  this  desire  is  not  reason,  but  a  feeling. 
Hence  the  importance  of  the  question,  how  to  give  to 
the  imagination  that  direction  wliich  will  exercise  the 
most  beneficial  influence  upon  the  feelings.  •  But  the 
professor  probably  meant,  that,  "  in  trying  circumstances, 
the  determination,"  not  "  of  the  will,"  but  of  the  under- 
standing, "is  often  more  by  feeling  than  by  reason." 
Unhappily  it  is  :  this  is  the  tendency  in  human  nature, 
against  which  Locke  warns  his  readers ;  and,  by  so 
warning  them,  incurs  the  censure  of  Mr.  Sedgwick.* 

The  other  accusation  which  the  professor  urges  against 
Locke  —  that  of  overlooking  "the  faculties  of  moral 
judgment,"  and  "depriving"  man  of  his  "moral  sense  " 
—  will  best  be  considered  along  with  his  strictures 
on  Paley's  "  Moral  Philosophy ;  "  for  against  Paley, 
also,  the  principal  charge  is  that  he  denies  the  moral 
sense. 


*  The  word  "  Imagination  "  is  currently  taken  in  such  a  variety  of  senses, 
that  there  is  some  diflSculty  in  making  use  of  it  at  all  without  risk  of  being 
misunderstood.  In  one  of  its  acceptations,  Imagination  is  not  the  auxiliary 
merely,  but  the  necessary  instrument,  of  Reason ;  namely,  by  summoning 
and  keeping  before  the  mind  a  lively  and  complete  image  of  the  thing  to  be 
reasoned  about.  The  differences  which  exist  among  human  beings  in  their 
capacity  of  doing  this,  and  the  influence  which  those  differences  exercise 
over  the  soundness  and  comprehensiveness  of  their  thinking  faculties,  are 
topics  well  worthy  of  an  elaborate  discussion.  But,  of  this  mode  of  viewing 
the  subject,  there  are  no  traces  in  Mr.  Sedgwick's  Discourse. 


148  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

It  is  a  fact  in  human  nature,  that  we  have  moral 
judgments  and  moral  feelings.  We  judge  certain  ac- 
tions and  dispositions  to  be  right,  others  wrong :  this 
we  call  approving  and  disapproving  them.  We  have 
also  feelings  of  pleasure  in  the  contemplation  of  the 
former  class  of  actions  and  dispositions, — feelings  of 
dislike  and  aversion  to  the  latter  ;  which  feelings, 
as  everybody  must  be  conscious,  do  not  exactly  resem- 
ble any  other  of  our  feelings  of  pain  or  pleasure. 

Such  are  the  phenomena.  Concerning  their  reality 
there  is  no  dispute.  But  there  are  two  theories  respect- 
ing the  origin  of  these  phenomena,  which  have  divided 
philosophers  from  the  earliest  ages  of  philosophy.  One 
is,  that  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong  is  an 
ultimate  and  inexplicable  fact ;  that  we  perceive  this 
distinction,  as  we  perceive  the  distinction  of  colors, 
by  a  peculiar  faculty ;  and  that  the  pleasures  and  pains, 
the  desires  and  aversions,  consequent  upon  this  percep- 
tion, are  all  ultimate  facts  in  our  nature,  as  much  so  as 
the  pleasures  and  pains,  or  the  desires  and  aversions, 
of  which  sweet  or  bitter  tastes,  pleasing  or  grating 
sounds,  are  the  object.  This  is  called  the  theory  of  the 
moral  sense,  or  of  moral  instincts,  or  of  eternal  and 
immutable  morality,  or  of  intuitive  principles  of  morality, 
or  by  many  other  names ;  to  the  differences  between 
which,  those  who  adopt  the  theory  often  attach  great 
importance,  but  which,  for  our  present  purpose,  may 
all  be  considered  as  equivalent. 

The  other  theory  is,  that  the  ideas  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  the  feelings  which  attach  themselves  to 
those  ideas,  are  not  ultimate  facts,  but  may  be  explained 
and  accounted  for,  —  are  not  the  result  of  any  peculiar 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  149 

law  of  our  nature,  but  of  the  same  laws  on  which  all 
our  other  complex  ideas  and  feelings  depend ;  that  the 
distinction  between  moral  and  immoral  acts  is  not  a 
peculiar  and  inscrutable  property  in  the  acts  themselves, 
which  we  perceive  by  a  sense,  as  we  perceive  colors  by 
our  sense  of  sight,  but  flows  from  the  ordinary  proper- 
ties of  those  actions,  for  the  recognition  of  which  we 
need  no  other  faculty  than  our  intellects  and  our  bodily 
senses.  And  the  particular  property  in  actions,  which 
constitutes  them  moral  or  immoral,  in  the  opinion  of 
those  who  hold  this  theory  (all  of  them,  at  least,  who 
need  here  be  noticed),  is  the  influence  of  those  actions, 
and  of  the  dispositions  from  which  they  emanate,  upon 
human  happiness. 

This  theory  is  sometimes  called  the  theory  of  Utility, 
and  is  what  Mr.  Sedgwick  means  by  "the  utilitarian 
theory  of  morals." 

Maintaining  this  second  theory,  Mr.  Sedgwick  calls 
"denying  the  existence  of  moral  feelings"  (p.  32). 
This  is,  in  the  first  place,  misstating  the  question.  No- 
body denies  the  existence  of  moral  feelings.  The  feel- 
ings exist,  manifestly  exist,  and  cannot  be  denied.  The 
questions  on  which  there  is  a  difference,  are,  first, 
whether  they  are  simple  or  complex  feelings,  and,  if 
complex,  of  what  elementary  feelings  they  are  com- 
posed ;  which  is  a  question  of  metaphysics  :  and,  sec- 
ondly, what  kind  of  acts  and  dispositions  are  the  proper 
objects  of  those  feelings ;  in  other  words,  what  is  the 
principle  of  morals.  These  questions,  and  more  pecu- 
liarly the  last,  the  theory  which  has  bfeen  termed  utili- 
tarian professes  to  solve. 

Paley  adopted   this   theory.       Mr.    Sedgwick,   who 


150  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

professes  the  other  theory,  treats  Paley,  and  all  who 
take  Paley's  side  of  the  question,  with  extreme  con- 
tumely. 

We  shall  show  that  Mr.  Sedgwick  has  no  right  to 
represent  Paley  as  a  type  of  the  theory  of  utility ;  that 
he  has  failed  in  refuting  even  Paley  ;  and  that  the  tone 
of  high  moral  reprobation  which  he  has  assumed  to- 
wards all  who  adopt  that  theory  is  altogether  unmerited 
on  their  part,  and  on  his,  from  his  extreme  ignorance 
of  the  subject,  peculiarly  unbecoming. 

Those  who  maintain  that  human  happiness  is  the  end 
and  test  of  morality  are  bound  to  prove  that  the  prin- 
ciple is  true,  but  not  that  Paley  understood  it.  No  one 
is  entitled  to  found  an  argument  against  a  principle, 
upon  the  faults  or  blunders  of  a  particular  writer  who 
professed  to  build  his  system  upon  it,  without  taking 
notice  that  the  principle  may  be  understood  differently, 
and  has  in  fact  been  understood  differently,  by  other 
writers.  What  would  be  thought  of  an  assailant  of 
Christianity,  who  should  judge  of  its  truth  o»  beneficial 
tendency  from  the  views  taken  of  it  by  the  Jesuits  or 
by  the  Shakers  ?  A  doctrine  is  not  judged  at  all  until 
it  is  judged  in  its  best  form.  The  principle  of  utility 
may  be  viewed  in  as  many  different  lights  as  every  other 
rule  or  principle  may.  If  it  be  liable  to  mischievous 
misinterpretations,  this  is  true  of  all  very  general,  and 
therefore  of  all  first,  principles.  Whether  the  ethical 
creed  of  a  follower  of  utility  will  lead  him  to  moral  or 
immoral  consequences,  depends  on  what  he  thinks 
useful ;  just  as,  with  a  partisan  of  the  opposite  doc- 
trine, —  that   of  innate   conscience,  —  it   depends    on 


PBOF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  151 

what  he  thinks  his  conscience  enjoins.  But  either  the 
one  theory  or  the  other  must  be  true.  Instead,  there- 
fore, of  cavilHng  about  the  abuses  and  perversions  of 
either,  real  manliness  would  consist  in  accepting  the 
true,  with  all  its  liabilities  to  abuse  and  perversion  ;  and 
then  bending  the  whole  force  of  our  intellects  to  the 
establishment  of  such  secondary  and  intermediate  max- 
ims, as  may  be  guides  to  the  bond-fide  inquirer  in  the 
application  of  the  principle,  and  salutary  checks  to 
the  sophist  and  the  dishonest  casuist. 

There  are  faults  in  Paley's  conception  of  the  philo- 
sophy of  morals,  both  in  its  foundations  and  in  its  sub- 
sequent stages,  which  prevent  his  book  from  being  an 
example  of  the  conclusions  justly  deducible  from  the 
doctrine  of  utility,  or  of  the  influences  of  that  doctrine, 
when  properly  understood,  upon  the  intellect  and 
character. 

In  the  first  place,  he  does  not  consider  utility  as 
itself  the  source  of  moral  obligation,  but  as  a  mere 
index  to  the  will  of  God,  which  he  regards  as  the 
ultimate  groundwork  of  all  morality,  and  the  origin  of 
its  binding  force.  This  doctrine  (not  that  utility  is  an 
index  to  the  wdl  of  God,  but  that  it  is  an  index  and 
nothing  else)  we  consider  as  highly  exceptionable,  and 
having  really  many  of  those  bad  effects  on  the  mind 
erroneously  ascribed  to  the  principle  of  utility. 

The  only  view  of  the  connection  between  religion 
and  morality  which  does  not  annihilate  the  very  idea  of 
the  latter  is  that  which  considers  the  Deity  as  not  mak- 
ing, but  recofi^nizino;  and  sanctionin";,  moral  obli<yation. 
In  the  minds  of  most  English  thinkers  down  to  the  mid- 
dle of  the  last  century,  the  idea  of  duty,  and  that  of 


152  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

obedience  to  God,  were  so  indissolubly  united,  as  ty  be 
inseparable  even  in  thought ;  and,  when  we  consider 
how  in  those  days  religious  motives  and  ideas  stood  in 
the  front  of  all  speculations,  it  is  not  wonderful  that 
religion  should  have  been  thought  to  constitute  the 
essence  of  all  obligations  to  which  it  annexed  its 
sanction.  To  have  inquired,  Why  am  I  bound  to  obey 
God's  will?  would,  to  a  Christian  of  that  age,  have 
appeared  irreverent.  It  is  a  question,  however,  which, 
as  much  as  any  other,  requires  an  answer  from  a  Chris- 
tian philosopher.  "Because  he  is  my  Maker"  is  no 
answer.  Why  should  I  obey  my  Maker?  From 
gratitude?  Then  gratitude  is  in  itself  obligatory,  in- 
dependently of  my  Maker's  will.  From  reverence  and 
love  ?  But  why  is  he  a  proper  object  of  love  and  rever- 
ence ?  Not  because  he  is  my  Maker.  If  I  had  been 
made  by  an  evil  spirit,  for  evil  purposes,  my  love  and 
reverence  (supposing  me  to  be  capable  of  such  feelings) 
would  have  been  due,  not  to  the  evil,  but  to  the  good 
Being.  Is  it  because  he  is  just,  righteous,  merciful? 
Then  these  attributes  are  in  themselves  good,  indepen- 
dently of  his  pleasure.  If  any  perspn  has  the  mis- 
fortune to  believe  that  his  Creator  commands  wickedness, 
more  respect  is  due  to  him  for  disobeying  such  ima- 
ginary commands  than  for  obeying  them.  If  virtue 
would  not  be  virtue  unless  the  Creator  commanded  it, 
if  it  derive  all  its  obligatory  force  from  his  will,  there 
remains  no  ground  for  obeying  him,  except  his  power ; 
no  motive  for  morality,  except  the  selfish  one  of  the  hope 
of  heaven,  or  the  selfish  and  slavish  one  of  the  fear  of 
hell. 

Accordingly,  in  strict  consistency  with  this  view  of 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  153 

the  nature  of  morality,  Paley  not  only  represents  the 
proposition,  that  we  ought  to  do  good,  and  not  harm, 
to  mankind,  as  a  mere  corollary  from  the  proposition 
that  God  wills  their  good,  and  not  their  harm, — but 
represents  the  motive  to  virtue,  and  the  motive  which 
constitutes  its  virtue,  as  consisting  solely  in  the  hope 
of  heaven  and  the  fear  of  hell. 

It  does  not,  however,  follow  that  Paley  believed  man- 
kind to  have  no  feelings  except  selfish  ones.  He  doubt- 
less would  have  admitted  that  they  are  acted  upon  by 
other  motives ;  or,  in  the  language  of  Bentham  and 
Helvetius,  that  they  have  other  interests  than  merely 
self-regarding  ones.  But  he  chose  to  say  that  actions 
done  from  those  other  motives  are  not  virtuous.  The 
happiness  of  mankind,  according  to  him,  was  the  end  for 
which  morality  was  enjoined ;  yet  he  would  not  admit 
any  thing  to  be  morality,  when  the  happiness  of  man- 
kind, or  of  any  of  mankind  except  ourselves,  is  the 
inducement  of  it.  He  annexed  an  arbitrary  meaning 
to  the  word  "virtue."  How  he  came  to  think  this 
arbitrary  meaning  the  right  one,  may  be  a  question ; 
partly,  perhaps,  by  the  habit  of  thinking  and  talk- 
ing of  morality  under  the  metaphor  of  a  law.  In 
the  notion  of  a  law,  the  idea  of  the  command  of  a 
superior,  enforced  by  penalties,  is,  of  course,  the  main 
element. 

If  Paley's  ethical  system  is  thus  unsound  in  its  foun- 
dations, the  spirit  which  runs  through  the  details  is  no 
less  exceptionable.  It  is,  indeed,  such  as  to  prove  that 
neither  the  character  nor  the  objects  of  the  writer  were 
those  of  a  philosopher.  There  is  none  of  the  single- 
minded  earnestness  for  truth,  whatever  it  may  be ;  the 


154  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

intrepid  defiance  of  prejudice  ;  the  firm  resolve  to  look  all 
consequences  in  the  face,  which  the  word  "  philosopher  " 
supposes,  and  without  which  nothing  worthy  of  note 
was  ever  accomphshed  in  moral  or  political  philosophy. 
One  sees  throughout  that  he  has  a  particular  set  of 
conclusions  to  come  to ;  and  will  not,  perhaps  cannot, 
allow  himself  to  let  in  any  premises  which  would  inter- 
fere with  them.  His  book  is  one  of  a  class  which  has 
since  become  very  numerous,  and  is  likely  to  become 
still  more  so,  —  an  apology  for  commonplace.  Not  to 
lay  a  solid  foundation,  and  erect  an  edifice  over  it  suited 
to  the  professed  ends,  but  to  construct  pillars,  and 
insert  them  under  the  existing  structure,  was  Paley's 
object.  He  took  the  doctrines  of  practical  morals 
which  he  found  current.  Mankind  were,  about  that 
time,  ceasing  to  consider  mere  use  and  wont,  or  even 
the  ordinary  special  pleading  from  texts  of  Scripture, 
as  sufficient  warrants  for  these  common  opinions,  and 
were  demanding  something  like  a  philosophic  basis  for 
them.  This  philosophic  basis,  Paley,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  made  it  his  endeavor  to  supply.  The 
skill  with  which  his  book  was  adapted  to  satisfy  this 
want  of  the  time  accounts  for  the  popularity  which  at- 
tended it,  notwithstanding  the  absence  of  that  generous 
and  inspiring  tone  which  gives  so  much  of  their  useful- 
ness as  well  as  of  their  charm  to  the  writings  of  Plato 
and  Locke  and  F^n^lon,  and  which  mankind  are  ac- 
customed to  pretend  to  admire,  whether  they  really 
respond  to  it  or  not. 

When  an  author  starts  with  such  an  object,  it  is  of 
little  consequence  what  premises  he  sets  out  from.  In 
adopting  the  principle  of  utility,  Paley,  we  have  no 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  155 

doubt,  followed  the  convictions  of  his  intellect ;  but,  if 
he  had  started  from  any  other  principle,  we  have  as 
little  doubt  that  he  would  have  arrived  at  the  verj  same 
copclusions.  These  conclusions,  namely,  the  received 
maxims  of  his  time,  were  (it  would  have  been  strange 
if  they  were  not)  accordant  in  many  points  with  those 
which  philosophy  would  have  dictated;  but,  had  they 
been  accordant  on  all  points,  that  was  not  the  way  in 
which  a  philosopher  would  have  dealt  with  them.  • 

The  only  deviation  from  commonplace  which  has 
ever  been  made  an  accusation  (for  all  departures  from 
commonplace  are  made  accusations)  against  Paley's 
moral  system  is  that  of  too  readjjy  allowing  exceptions 
to  important  rules ;  and  this  Mr.  Sedgwick  does  not 
fail  to  lay  hold  of,  and  endeavor,  as  others  have  done 
before  him,  to  fix  it  upon  the  principle  of  utility  as  an 
immoral  consequence.  It  is,  however,  imputable  to 
the  very  same  cause  which  we  have  already  pointed  out. 
Along  with  the  prevailing  maxims,  Paley  borrowed 
the  prevailing  laxity  in  their  application.  He  had  not 
only  to  maintain  existing  doctrines,  but  to  save  the 
credit  of  existing  practices  also.  He  found,  in  his  coun- 
try's morality  (especially  its  poMtical  morality) ,  modes 
of  conduct  universally  prevalent,  and  applauded  by  aU 
persons  of  station  and  consideration,  but  which,  being 
acknowledged  violations  of  great  moral  principles, 
could  only  be  defended  as  cases  of  exception,  resting 
on  special  grounds  of  expediency ;  and  the  only  expe- 
diency which  it  was  possible  to  ascribe  to  them  was 
political  expediency,  —  that  is,  conduciveness  to  the  in- 
terests of  the  ruling  powers.  To  this,  and  not  to  the 
tendencies  of  the  principle  of  utility,  is  to  be  ascribed 


156  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

the  lax  morality  taught  by  Paley,  and  justly  objected 
to  by  Mr.  Sedgwick,  on  the  subject  of  lies,  of  sub- 
scriptions to  articles,  of  the  abuses  of  influence  in  the 
British  Constitution,  and  various  other  topics.  The 
principle  of  utility  leads  to  no  such  conclusions.  Let 
us  be  permitted  to  add,  that,  if  it  did,  we  should  not  of 
late  years  have  heard  so  much  in  reprobation  of  it  from 
all  manner  of  persons,  and  from  none  more  than  from 
the  sworn  defenders  of  those  very  malpractices. 

When  an  inquirer  knows  beforehand  the  conclusions 
which  he  is  to  come  to,  he  is  not  likely  to  seek  far  for 
grounds  to  rest  them  upon.  Accordingly,  the  con- 
siderations of  expediency  upon  which  Paley  founds  his 
moral  rules  are  almost  all  of  the  most  obvious  and 
vulgar  kind.  In  estimating  the  consequences  of  actions, 
in  order  to  obtain  a  measure  of  their  morality,  there  are 
always  two  sets  of  considerations  involved,  — the  conse- 
quences to  the  outward  interests  of  the  parties  concerned 
(including  the  agent  himself)  ;  and  the  consequences 
to  the  characters  of  the  same  persons,  and  to  their  out- 
ward interests  so  far  as  dependent  on  their  characters. 
In  the  estimation  of  the  first  of  these  two  classes  of 
considerations,  there  is,  in  general,  not  much  difliculty, 
nor  much  room  for  diiference  of  opinion.  The  actions 
which  are  directly  hurtful,  or  directly  useful,  to  the 
outward  interests  of  one's  self  or  of  other  people,  are 
easily  distinguished,  sufficiently  at  least  for  the  guidance 
of  a  private  individual.  The  rights  of  individuals, 
which  other  individuals  ought  to  respect,  over  external 
things,  are,  in  general,  sufficiently  pointed  out  by  a  few 
plain  rules  and  by  the  laws  of  one's  country.  But  it 
often  happens  that  an  essential  part  of  the  morality  or 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  157 

immorality  of  an  action  or  a  rule  of  action  consists  in 
its  influence  upon  the  agent's  own  mind ;  upon  his  sus- 
ceptibilities of  pleasure  or  pain  ;  upon  the  general  direc- 
tion of  his  thoughts,  feelings,  and  imagination  ;  or  upon 
some  particular  association.  Many  actions,  moreover, 
produce  effects  upon  the  character  of  other  persons 
besides  the  agent.  In  all  these  cases,  there  will  natu- 
rally be  as  much  difference  in  the  moral  judgments  of 
different  persons  as  there  is  in  their  views  of  human 
nature  and  of  the  formation  of  character.  Clear  and 
comprehensive  views  of  education  and  human  culture 
must  therefore  precede,  and  form  the  basis  of,  a  philo- 
sophy of  morals ;  nor  can  the  latter  subject  ever  be 
understood  but  in  proportion  as  the  former  is  so.  For 
this,  much  yet  remains  to  be  done.  Even  the  mate- 
rials, though  abundant,  are  not  complete.  Of  those 
which  exist,  a  large  proportion  have  never  yet  found 
their  way  into  the  writings  of  philosophers,  but  are  to 
be  gathered,  on  the  one  hand,  from  actual  observers  of 
mankind ;  on  the  other,  from  those  autobiographers, 
and  from  those  poets  or  novelists,  who  have  spoken  out 
unreservedly,  from  their  own  experience,  any  true 
human  feeling.  To  collect  together  these  materials, 
and  to  add  to  them,  will  be  a  labor  for  successive 
generations.  But  Paley,  instead  of  having  brought 
from  the  philosophy  of  education  and  character  any 
new  light  to  illuminate  the  subject  of  morals,  has  not 
even  availed  himself  of  the  lights  which  had  already 
been  thrown  upon  it  from  that  source.  He,  in  fact, 
had  meditated  little  on  this  branch  of  the  subject,  and 
had  no  ideas  in  relation  to  it  but  the  commonest 
and  most  superficial. 


158  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

Thus  much  we  have  been  induced  to  say,  rather  from 
the  importance  of  the  subject  than  for  the  sake  of  a 
just  estimate  of  Paley,  which  is  a  matter  of  inferior 
consequence ;  still  less  for  the  sake  of  repelling  Mr. 
Sedgwick's  onslaught,  which,  as  we  shall  soon  see, 
might  have  been  more  summarily  disposed  of. 

Mr.  Sedgwick's  objections  to  the  principle  of  utility 
are  of  two  kinds,  —  first,  that  it  is  not  true  ;  secondly, 
that  it  is  dangerous,  degrading,  and  so  forth.  What 
he  says  against  its  truth,  when  picked  out  from  a  hun- 
dred different  places  and  brought  together,  would  fill 
about  three  pages,  leaving  about  twenty  consisting  of 
attacks  upon  its  tendency.  This  already  looks  ill ;  for, 
after  all,  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  the  principle  is  the 
main  point.  When,  of  a  dissertation  on  any  contro- 
verted question,  a  small  part  only  is  employed  in  prov- 
ing the  author's  own  opinion,  a  large  part  in  ascribing 
odious  consequences  to  the  opposite  opinion,  we  are  apt 
to  think,  either  that,  on  the  former  point,  there  was  not 
very  much  to  be  said ;  or,  if  there  was,  that  the  author 
is  not  very  w^ell  qualified  to  say  it.  One  thing  is  cer- 
tain,—  that,  if  an  opinion  have  ever  such  mischievous 
consequences,  that  cannot  prevent  any  thinking  per- 
son from  believing  it,  if  the  evidence  is  in  its  favor. 
Unthinking  persons,  indeed,  if  they  are  very  solemnly 
assured  that  an  opinion  has  mischievous  consequences, 
may  be  frightened  from  examining  the  evidence.  Wlien, 
therefore,  we  find  that  this  mode  of  dealing  with  an 
opinion  is  the  favorite  one,  is  resorted  to  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  other,  and  with  greater  vehemence  and  at 
greater  length,  we  conclude  that  it  is  upon  unthinking 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  159 

rather  than  upon  thinking  persons  that  the  author  calcu 
lates  upon  making  an  impression,  or  else  that  he  himself 
is  one  of  the  former  class  of  persons  ;  that  his  own  judg- 
ment is  determined  less  bj  evidence  presented  to  his 
understanding  than  by  the  repugnancy  of  the  opposite 
opinion  to  his  partialities  and  affections ;  and  that,  per- 
ceiving clearly  the  opinion  to  be  one  which  it  would  be 
painful  to  him  to  adopt,  he  has  been  easily  satisfied 
with  reasons  for  rejecting  it. 

All  that  the  professor  says  to  disprove  the  principle 
of  utility,  and  to  prove  the  existence  of  a  moral  sense, 
is  found  in  the  following  paragraph  :  — 

"  Let  it  not  be  said  that  our  moral  sentiments  are  super- 
induced by  seeing  and  tracing  the  consequences  of  crime. 
The  assertion  is  not  true.  The  early  sense  of  shame  comes 
before  such  trains  of  thought,  and  is  not,  therefore,  caused  by 
them ;  and  millions,  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  have  grown  up 
as  social  beings  and  moral  agents,  amenable  to  the  laws  of 
God  and  man,  who  never  traced,  or  thought  of  tracing,  the 
consequences  of  their  actions,  nor  ever  referred  them  to  any 
standard  of  utility.  Nor  let  it  be  said  that  the  moral  sense 
comes  of  mere  teaching ;  that  right  and  wrong  pass  as  mere 
words,  first  from  the  lips  of  the  motiier  to  the  child,  and  then 
from  man  to  man  ;  and  that  we  grow  up  with  moral  judgments 
gradually  ingrafted  in  us  from  without,  by  the  long-heard 
lessons  of  praise  and  blame,  by  the  experience  of  fitness,  or 
the  sanction  of  the  law.  I  repeat,  that  the  statement  is  not 
true  ;  that  our  moral  perceptions  show  themselves  not  in  any 
such  order  as'this.  The  question  is  one  of  feeling ;  and  the 
moral  feelings  are  often  strongest  in  very  early  life,  before 
moral  rules  or  legal  sanctions  have  once  been  thought  of. 
Again :  what  are  we  to  understand  by  teaching  ?  Teaching 
implies  capacity :   one  can  be  of  no  use  without  the  other 


160  PEOF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

A  faculty  of  the  soul  may  be  called  forth,  brought  to  light, 
and  matured,  but  cannot  be  created,  any  more  than  we  can 
create  a  new  particle  of  matter,  or  invent  a  new  law  of 
nature."  —  pp.  52,  53. 

The  substance  of  the  last  three  sentences  is  repeated 
at  somewhat  greater  length  shortly  after  (pp.  54,  55), 
in  a  passage  from  which  we  need  only  ^  quote  the  fol- 
lowing words  :  "  No  training  (however  greatly  it  may 
change  an  individual  mind)  can  create  a  new  faculty, 
any  more  than  it  can  give  a  ncAV  organ  of  sense."  In 
many  other  parts  of  the  discourse,  the  same  arguments 
are  alluded  to,  but  no  new  ones  are  introduced. 

Let  us,  then,  examine  these  arguments. 

First,  The  professor  says,  or  seems  to  say,  that  our 
moral  sentiments  cannot  be  generated  by  experience  of 
consequences,  because  a  child  feels  the  sense  of  shame 
before  he  has  any  experience  of  consequences ;  and, 
likewise,  because  millions  of  persons  grow  up,  have 
moral  feelings,  and  live  morally,  "  who  never  traced,  or 
thought  of  tracing,  the  consequences  of  their  actions," 
but  who  yet,  it  seems,  are  suffered  to  go  at  large; 
which  we  thought  was  not  usually  the  case  with  persons 
who  never  think  of  the  consequences  of  their  actions. 
The  professor  continues, — "who  never  traced,  or  thought 
of  tracing,  the  consequences  of  their  actions,  nor  ever 
referred  them  to  any  standard  of  utility." 

Secondly,  That  our  moral  feelings  cannot  arise  from 
teaching,  because  those  feelings  are  often  strongest  in 
very  early  life. 

Thirdly,  That  our  moral  feelings  cannot  arise  from 
teaching,  because  teaching  can  only  call  forth  a  faculty, 
but  cannot  create  one. 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discouese.  161 

Let  us  first  consider  the  singular  allegation,  that  the 
sense  of  shame  in  a  child  precedes  all  experience  of 
the  consequences  of  actions.  Is  it  not  astounding  that 
such  an  assertion  should  be  ventured  upon  by  any 
person  of  sane  mind?  At  what  period  in  a  child's 
life,  after  it  is  capable  of  forming  the  idea  of  an  action 
at  all,  can  it  be  without  experience  of  the  consequences 
of  actions  ?  As  soon  as  it  has  the  idea  of  one  person 
striking  another,  is  it  not  aware  that  striking  produces 
pain  ?  As  soon  as  it  has  the  idea  of  being  commanded 
by  its  parent,  has  it  not  the  notion,  that,  by  not  doing 
what  is  commanded,  it  will  excite  the  parent's  dis- 
pleasure ?  A  child's  knowledge  of  the  simple  fact  (one 
of  the  earliest  he  becomes  acquainted  with) ,  that  some 
acts  produce  pain,  and  others  pleasure,  is  called  by 
pompous  names,  —  "  seeing  and  tracing  the  consequences 
of  crime,"  "trains  of  thought,"  "referring  actions  to  a 
standard," — terms  which  imply  continued  reflection  and 
large  abstractions  ;  and,  because  these  terms  are  absurd 
when  used  of  a  child  or  an  uneducated  person,  we  are 
to  conclude  that  a  child  or  an  uneducated  person  has  no 
notion  that  one  thing  is  caused  by  another.  As  well 
might  it  be  said  that  a  child  requires  an  instinct  to  tell 
him  that  he  has  ten  fingers,  because  he  knows  it  before 
he  has  ever  thought  of  "  making  arithmetical  computa- 
tions." Though  a  child  is  not  a  jurist  or  a  moral 
philosopher  (to  whom  alone  the  professor's  phrases 
would  be  properly  applicable) ,  he  has  the  idea  of  him- 
self hurting  or  offending  some  one,  or  of  some  one 
hurting  or  annoying  him.  These  are  ideas  which  pre- 
cede any  sense  of  shame  in  doing  wrong ;  and  it  is  out 
of  these  elements,  and  not  out  of  abstractions,  that  the 

VOL.  I.  11 


162  PROF,  sedgavick's  discourse. 

c^upporters  of  the  theory  of  utility  contend  that  the  idea 
of  wrong,  and  our  feelings  of  disapprobation  of  it,  are 
originally  formed.  Mr.  Sedgwick's  argument  resem- 
bles one  we  often  hear,  —  that  the  principle  of  utility 
must  be  false,  because  it  supposes  morality  to  be  found- 
ed on  the  good  of  society  ;  an  idea  too  complex  for  the 
majority  of  mankind,  who  look  only  to  the  particular 
persons  concerned.  T\Tiy,  none  but  those  who  mingle 
in  public  transactions,  or  whose  example  is  likely  to 
have  extensive  influence,  have  any  occasion  to  look 
beyond  the  particular  persons  concerned.  Morality, 
for  all  other  people,  consists  in  doing  good,  and  refrain- 
ing from  harm,  to  themselves,  and  to  those  who  imme- 
diately surround  them.  As  soon  as  a  child  has  the 
idea  of  voluntarily  producing  pleasure  or  pain  to  any 
one  person,  he  has  an  accurate  notion  of  utility.  When 
he  afterwards  gradually  rises  to  the  very  complex  idea 
of  "  society,"  and  learns  in  what  manner  his  actions  may 
affect  the  interests  of  other  persons  than  those  who  are 
present  to  his  sight,  his  conceptions  of  utility,  and  of 
right  and  wrong  founded  on  utility,  undergo  a  corre- 
sponding enlargement,  but  receive  no  new  element. 

Again  :  if  it  Avere  ever  so  true  that  the  sense  of 
shame  in  a  child  precedes  all  knowledge  of  conse- 
quences, what  is  that  to  the  question  respecting  a  moral 
sense  ?  Is  the  sense  of  shame  the  same  thing  with  a 
moral  sense  ?  A  child  is  ashamed  of  doing  what  he  is 
told  is  wrong ;  but  so  is  he  also  ashamed  of  doing  what 
he  knows  is  right,  if  he  expects  to  be  laughed  at  for 
doing  it :  he  is  ashamed  of  being  duller  than  another 
child,  of  being  ugly,  of  being  poor,  of  not  having  fine 
clothes,  of  not  being  able  to  run  or  wrestle  or  box  so 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  163 

well  as  another.  He  is  ashamed  of  whatever  causes 
him  to  be  thought  less  of  by  the  persons  who  surround 
him.  This  feeling  of  shame  is  accounted  for  by  obvi- 
ous associations ;  but  suppose  it  to  be  innate,  what 
would  that  prove  in  favor  of  a  moral  sense?  If  all 
that  Mr.  Sedgwick  can  show  for  a  moral  sense  is  the 
sense  of  shame,  it  might  well  be  supposed  that  all  our 
moral  sentiments  are  the  result  of  opinions  which  come 
to  us  from  without ;  since  the  sense  of  shame  so  obvi- 
ously follows  the  opinion  of  others,  and,  at  least  in 
early  years,  is  wholly  determined  by  it. 

On  the  professor's  first  argument  no  more  needs  here 
be  said.  His  second  is  the  following,  —  that  moral 
feelings  cannot  "  come  of  mere  teaching,"  because  they 
do  not  grow  up  gradually,  but  are  often  strongest  in 
very  early  life. 

Now,  this  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  mistaking  of  the 
matter  in  dispute.  The  professor  is  not  arguing  with 
Mandeville,  or  with  the  rhetoricians  in  Plato.  Nobody 
with  whom  he  is  concerned  says  that  moral  feelings 
"  come  of  mere  teaching."  It  is  not  pretended  that 
they  are  factitious  and  artificial  associations,  inculcated 
by  parents  and  teachers  purposely  to  further  certain 
social  ends,  and  no  more  congenial  to  our  natural  feel- 
ings than  the  contrary  associations.  The  idea  of  the 
pain  of  another  is  naturally  painful :  the  idea  of  the 
pleasure  of  another  is-  naturally  pleasurable.  From 
this  fact  in  our  natural  constitution,  all  our  affections, 
both  of  love  and  aversion  towards  human  beings,  in  so 
far  as  they  are  different  from  those  we  entertain  towards 
.mere  inanimate  objects  which  are  pleasant  or  disagreea- 
ble to  us,  are  held,  by  the  best  teachers  of  the  theory 


164  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

of  utility,  to  originate.  In  tliis,  the  unselfish  part  of 
our  nature,  lies  a  foundation,  even  independently  of 
inculcation  from  without,  for  the  generation  of  moral 
feelings. 

But  if,  because  it  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  consti- 
tution of  our  nature  that  moral  feelings  should  grow  up 
independently  of  teaching,  Mr.  Sedgwick  would  infer 
that  they  generally  do  so,  or  that  teaching  is  not  the 
source  of  almost  all  the  moral  feelino^  which  exists  in 
the  w^orld,  his  assertion  is  a  piece  of  sentimentality 
completely  at  variance  with  the  facts.  If,  by  saying 
that  "  moral  feelings  are  often  strongest  in  very  early 
life,"  Mr.  Sedgwick  means  that  they  are  strongest  in 
children,  he  only  proves  his  ignorance  of  children. 
Young  children  have  affections,  but  not  moral  feelings  ; 
and  children  whose  will  is  never  resisted  never  acquire 
them.  There  is  no  selfishness  equal  to  that  of  chil- 
dren, as  every  one  who  is  acquainted  with  children  well 
knows.  It  is  not  the  hard,  cold  selfishness  of  a  grown 
person ;  for  the  most  affectionate  children  have  it  where 
their  affection  is  not  supplying  a  counter-impulse  :  but 
the  most  selfish  of  growTi  persons  does  not  come  up  to 
a  child  in  the  reckless  seizing  of  any  pleasure  to  hnn- 
self,  regardless  of  the  consequences  to  others.  The 
pains  of  others,  though  naturally  painful  to  us,  are  not 
60  until  we  have  realized  them  by  an  act  of  imagina- 
tion, implying  volimtary  attention ;  and  that  no  very 
young  child  ever  pays  while  under  the  impulse  of  a 
present  desire.  If  a  child  restrains  the  indulgence  of 
any  wish,  it  is  either  from  affection  or  sympathy,  which 
are  quite  other  feelings  than  those  of  morality,  or  else 
(whatever  Mr.  Sedgwick  may  think)  because  he  has 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discouese.  165 

been  taught  to  do  so  ;  and  he  only  learns  the  habit  grad- 
ually, and  in  proportion  to  the  assiduity  and  skill  of  the 
teaching. 

The  assertion,  that  "  moral  feelings  are  often  strongest 
in  very  early  life,"  is  true  in  no  sense  but  one,  which 
confirms  what  it  is  brought  to  refute.  The  time  bf  life  at 
which  moral  feelings  are  apt  to  be  strongest  is  the  age 
when  we  cease  to  be  merely  members  of  our  own  fami- 
lies, and  begin  to  have  intercourse  with  the  world; 
that  is,  when  the  teaching  has  continued  longest  in  one 
direction,  and  has  not  commenced  in  any  other  direc- 
tion. When  we  go  forth  into  the  world,  and  meet 
with  teaching,  both  by  precept  and  example,  of  an 
opposite  tendency  to  that  which  we  have  been  used 
to,  the  feeling  begins  to  weaken.  Is  this  a  sign  of 
its  being  wholly  independent  of  teaching  ?  Has  a  boy 
quietly  educated  in  a  well-regulated  home,  or  one  who 
has  been  at  a  public  school,  the  strongest  moral  feel- 
ings? 

Enough  has  probably  been  said  on  the  professor's 
second  argument.  His  third  is,  that  teaching  may 
strengthen  our  natural  faculties,  and  call  forth  those 
which  are  powerless,  because  untried ;  but  cannot  create 
a  faculty  which  does  not  exist ;  cannot,  therefore,  have 
created  the  moral  faculty. 

It  is  surprising  that  Mr.  Sedgwick  should  not  see 
that  his  argument  begs  the  question  in  dispute.  To 
prove  that  our  moral  judgments  are  innate,  he  assumes 
that  they  proceed  from  a  distinct  faculty ;  but  this  is 
precisely  what  the  adherents  of  the  principle  of  utility 
deny.  They  contend  that  the  morality  of  actions  is 
perceived  by  the  same  faculties  by  whicli  Ave  perceive 


166  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

any  other  of  the  qualities  of  actions ;  namely,  our  in- 
tellects and  our  senses.  They  hold  the  capacity  of 
perceiving  moral  distinctions  to  be  no  more  a  distinct 
faculty  than  the  capacity  of  trying  causes,  or  of  making 
a  speech  to  a  jury.  This  last  is  a  very  peculiar  power  ; 
yet  no  one  says  that  it  must  have  pre-existed  in  Sir 
James  Scarlett  before  he  was  called  to  the  bar,  because 
teaching  and  practice  cannot  create  a  now  faculty. 
They  can  create  a  new  power ;  and  a  faculty  is  but  a 
finer  name  for  a  power.  Mr.  Sedgwick  loses  sight  of 
the  very  meaning  of  the  word  faculty,  — facultas.  He 
talks  of  a  faculty  "powerless,  because  untried,"  —  a 
power  powerless  !  * 

The  only  color  for  representing  our  moral  judgments, 
as  the  result  of  a  peculiar  part  of  our  nature,  is,  that 
our  feelings  of  moral  approbation  and  disapprobation 
are  really  peculiar  feelings.  But  is  it  not  notorious, 
that  peculiar  feelings,  unlike  any  others  which  we  have 
experience  of,  are  created  by  association  every  day? 
What  does  the  professor  think  of  the  feelings  of  ambi- 
tion,—  the  desire  of  power  over  our  fellow-creatures, 
and  the  pleasure  of  its  possession  and  exercise  ?  These 
are  peculiar  feelings  ;  but  they  are  obviously  generated, 
by  the  law  of  association,  from  the  connection  between 
power  over  our  fellow-creatures,  and  the  gratification 
of  almost  all  our  other  inclinations.  What  will  the 
professor  say  of  the  chivalrous  point  of  honor?  what 
of  the   feelings  of  envy  and  jealousy?    what   of  the 

*  We  cannot  help  referring  the  professor  back  to  Locke,  and  to  that  very 
chapter  "On  Power"  which  he  singles  out  for  peculiar  objurgation.  We 
recommend  to  his  special  attention  the  admirable  remarks  in  that  chapter  on 
the  abuse  of  the  word  "facultA." 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  167 

feelings  of  the  miser  to  his  gold?  Who  ever  looked 
upon  these  last  as  the  subject  of  a  distinct  natural 
faculty  ?  Their  origin  in  association  is  obvious  to  all 
the  world ;  yet  they  are  feelings  as  peculiar,  as  unlike 
any  other  part  of  our  nature,  as  the  feelings  of  con- 
science. 

It  will  hardly  be  believed  that  what  we  have  now 
answered  is  all  that  Mr.  Sedgwick  advances  to  prove 
the  principle  of  utility  untrue ;  yet  such  is  the  fact. 
Let  us  now  see  whether  he  is  more  successful  in  prov- 
ing the  pernicious  consequences  of  the  principle,  and  the 
"  degrading  effect."  which  it  produces  "  on  the  temper 
and  conduct  of  those  who  adopt  it." 

The  professor's  talk  is  more  indefinite,  and  the  few 
ideas  he  has  are  more  overlaid  with  declamatory  phrases, 
on  this  point,  than  even  on  the  preceding  one.  We  can, 
however,  descry  through  the  mist  some  faint  semblance 
of  two  tangible  objections,  — one,  that  the  principle  of 
utility  is  not  suited  to  man's  capacity  ;  that,  if  we  were 
ever  so  desirous  of  applying  it- correctly,  we  should  not 
be  capable  :  the  other,  that  it  debases  the  moral  prac- 
tice of  those  who  adopt  it ;  which  seems  to  imply 
(strange  as  the  assertion  is)  that  the  adoption  of  it  as  a 
principle  is  not  consistent  with  an  attempt  to  apply  it 
correctly. 

We  must  quote  Mr.  Sedgwick's  very  words,  or  it 
would  hardly  be  believed  that  we  quote  him  fairly  :  — 

"  Independently  of  the  bad  effects  produced  on  the  moral 
character  of  man  "by  a  system  which  makes  expediency  (in 
whatever  sense  the  word  be  used)  the  test  of  riglit  and  wrong, 
we  may  affirm,  on  a  more  general  view,  that  the  rule  itself  is 
utterly  unfitted  to  his  capacity.     Feeble  as  man  may  be,  he 


168  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

forms  a  link  in  a  chain  of  moral  causes,  ascending  to  the 
throne  of  God;  and,  trifling  as  his  individual  acts  may  seem, 
he  tries  in  vain  to  follow  out  their  consequences  as  they  go 
down  into  the  countless  ages  of  coming  time.  Viewed  in  this 
light,  every  act  of  man  is  woven  into  a  moral  system,  ascend- 
ing through  the  past,  descending  to  the  future,  and  precon- 
ceived in  the  mind  of  the  Almighty.  Nor  does  this  notion, 
as  far  as  regards  ourselves,  end  in  mere  quietism  and  neces- 
sity. For  we  know  right  from  wrong,  and  have  that  liberty 
of  action  which  implies  responsibility ;  and,  as  far  as  we  are 
allowed  to  look  into  the  ways  of  Providence,  it  seems  com- 
patible with  his  attributes  to  use  the  voluntary  acts  of  created 
beings  as  second  causes  in  working  out  the  ends  of  his  own 
will.  Leaving,  however,  out  of  question  that  stumbling-block 
which  the  prescience  of  God  has  often  thrown  in  the  way  of 
feeble  and  doubting  minds,  we  are  at  least  certain  that  man 
has  not  foreknowledge  to  trace  the  consequences  of  a  single 
action  of  his  own  ;  and  hence  that  utility  (in  the  highest  sense 
of  which  the  word  is  capable)  is,  as  a  test  of  right  and  wrong, 
unfitted  to  his  understanding,  and  therefore. worthless  in  its 
application."  —  pp.  63,  64. 

Mr.  Sedgwick  appears  to  be  one  of  that  numerous 
class  who  never  take  the  trouble  to  set  before  themselves 
faii'ly  an  opinion  which  they  have  an  aversion  to.  Who 
ever  said  that  it  was  necessary  to  foresee  all  the  conse- 
quences of  each  individual  action  "  as  they  go  down  into** 
the  countless  ages  of  coming^  time  "  ?  Some  of  the  con- 
sequences  of  an  action  are  accidental ;  others  are  its 
natural  result,  according  to  the  known  laws  of  the  uni- 
verse. The  former,  for  the  most  part,  cannot  be  fore- 
seen ;  but  the  whole  course  of  human  life  is  founded 
upon  the  fact,  that  the  latter  can.  In  what  reliance  do 
we  ply  our  several  trades  ?     In  what  reliance  do  we  buy 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  1(39 

or  sell,  eat  or  drink,  write  books,  or  read  them ;  walk, 
ride,  speak,  think,  —  except  on  our  foresight  of  the  con- 
sequences of  those  actions?  The  commonest  person 
lives  according  to  maxims  of  prudence  wholly  founded 
on  foresight  of  consequences ;  and  we  are  told  by  a 
wise  man  from  Cambridge,  that  the  foresight  of  con- 
sequences, as  a  rule  to  guide  ourselves  by,  is  impossi- 
ble !  Our  foresight  of  consequences  is  not  perfect.  Is 
any  thing  else  in  our  constitution  perfect  ?  "  Est  quo- 
dam  prodh'e  tenus,  si  non  datur  ultra  :  Non  possis  oculo 
quantum  contendere  Lynceus ;  Non  tamen  idcirco  con- 
temnas  lippus  inungi."  If  the  professor  quarrels  with 
such  means  of  guiding  our  conduct  as  we  are  gifted 
with,  it  is  incumbent  on  him  to  show,  that,  in  point  of 
fact,  we  have  Ijeen  provided  with  better.  Does  the 
moral  sense,  allowing  its  existence,  point  out  any  surer 
practical  rules?  If  so,  let  us  have  them  in  black  and 
white.  If  nature  has  given  us  rules  which  suffice  for 
our  conduct,  without  any  consideration  of  the  probable 
consequences  of  our  actions,  produce  them.  But  no  : 
for  two  thousand  years,  nature's  moral  code  has  been  a 
topic  for  declamation,  and  no  one  has  yet  produced 
a  single  chapter  of  it ;  nothing  but  a  few  elementary 
generalities,  which  are  the  mere  alphabet  of  a  morality 
founded  upon  utility.  Hear  Bishop  Butler,  the  ora- 
cle of  the  moral-sense  school,  and  M'hom  our  author 
quotes :  — 

"  However  much  men  may  have  disputed  about  the  nature 
of  virtue,  and  wliatever  ground  for  doubt  there  may  be  about 
particulars,  yet,  in  general,  there  is  an  universally  acknowl- 
edged standard  of  it.  It  is  that  which  all  ages  and  all  coun- 
tries have  made  a  profession  of  in  public ;  it  is  that  which 


170  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

everv  man  you  meet  puts  on  the  show  of;  it  Is  that  which  the 
primary  and  fundamental  laws  of  all  civil  constitutions  over 
the  face  of  the  earth  make  it  their  business  and  endeavor  to 
enforce  the  practice  of  upon  mankind ;  namely,  justice,  ve- 
racity, and  regard  to  the  common  good."  —  p.  130. 

Mr.  Sedgwick  praises  Butler  for  not  being  more  ex- 
planatory.* Did  Butler,  then,  or  does  Mr.  Sedgwick, 
seriously  believe  that  mankind  have  not  sufficient  fore- 
sight of  consequences  to  perceive  the  advantage  of 
"justice,  veracity,  and  regard  to  the  common  good"? 
that,  without  a  peculiar  faculty,  they  would  not  be  able 
to  see  that  these  qualities  are  useful  to  them  ? 

When,  indeed,  the  question  arises.  What  is  justice, 
—  that  is,  what  are  those  claims  of  others  which  we  arp 
bound  to  respect,  —  and  What  is  the  conduct  required 
by  "  regard  to  the  common  good  "  ?  the  solutions  wliich 
we  can  deduce  from  our  foresight  of  consequences  are 
not  infallible.  But  let  any  one  try  those  which  he  can 
deduce  from  the  moral  sense.  Can  he  deduce  any? 
Show  us,  written  in  the  human  heart,  any  answer  to 
these  questions.  Bishop  Butler  gives  up  the  point,  and 
Mr.  Sedgwick  praises  him  for  doing  so.  When  Mr. 
Sedgwick  wants  something  definite  to  oppose  to  the 
indefiniteness  of  a  morality  founded  on  utility,  he  has 
recourse,  not  to  the  moral  sense,  but  to  Christianity. 
With  such  fairness  as  this  does  he  hold  the  balance  be- 
tween the  two  principles  :  he  supposes  his  moral-sense 

*  "  Here  everj'  thing,"  says  he,  "  remains  indefinite ;  j'et  all  the  succes- 
sive propositions  have  their  meaning.  The  author  knew  well  that  the  things 
he  had  to  deal  with  were  indefinite,  and  that  he  could  not  fetter  them  in  the 
language  of  a  formal  definition  without  violating  their  nature.  But  how 
small  has  been  the  number  of  moral  writers  who  have  understood  the  real 
value  of  this  forbearance !  " 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  171 

man  provided  with  all  the  guidance  which  can  be  de- 
rived from  a  revelation  from  heaven,  and  his  utilitarian 
destitute  of  any  such  help.  When  one  sees  the  ques- 
tion so  stated,  one  cannot  wonder  at  any  conclusion. 
Need  we  say,  that  revelation,  as  a  means  of  supplying 
the  uncertainty  of  human  judgment,  is  as  open  to  one 
of  the  two  parties  as  to  the  other  ?  Need  we  say  that 
Paley,  the  very  author,  who,  in  this  Discourse,  is  treated 
as  the  representative  of  the  utilitarian  system,  appeals 
to  revelation  throughout?  and  obtains  no  credit  from 
Mr.  Sedgwick  for  it,  but  the  contrary ;  for  revelation, 
it  seems,  may  be  referred  to  in  aid  of  the  moral  sense, 
but  not  to  assist  or  rectify  our  judgments  of  utility. 

The  truth,  however,  is,  that  revelation  (if  by  revela- 
tion be  meant  the  New  Testament),  as  Paley  justly 
observed,  enters  little  into  the  details  of  ethics.  Chris- 
tianity does  not  deliver  a  code  of  morals,  any  more  than 
a  code  of  law^s.  Its  practical  morality  is  altogether 
indefinite,  and  was  meant  to  be  so.  This  indefiniteness 
has  been  considered  by  some  of  the  ablest  defenders  of 
Christianity  as  one  of  its  most  signal  merits,  and  among 
the  strongest  proofs  of  its  divine  origin  ;  being  the  qual- 
ity which  fits  it  to  be  an  universal  religion,  and  distin- 
guishes it  both  from  the  Jewish  dispensation,  and  from 
all  other  religions,  which  as  they  invariably  enjoin, 
under  their  most  awful  sarictions,  acts  which  are  only 
locally  or  temporarily  useful,  are  in  their  own  nature 
local  and  temporary.  Christianity,  on  the  contrary, 
influences  the  conduct  by  shaping  the  character  itself :  it 
aims  at  so  elevating  and  purifying  the  desires,  that  there 
shall  be  no  hinderance  to  the  fulfilment  of  our  duties 
when  recognized ;  but  of  what  our  duties  are,  at  least 


172  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

in  regard  to  outward  acts,  it  says  very  little  but  what 
moralists  in  general  have  said.  If,  therefore,  we  would 
have  any  definite  morality  at  all,  we  must  perforce 
resort  to  that  "foresight  of  consequences,"  of  the  diffi- 
culties of  which  the  professor  has  so  formidable  an 
idea. 

But  this  talk  about  uncertainty  is  mere  exaggeration. 
There  would  be  great  uncertainty  if  each  individual  had 
all  to  do  for  himself,  and  only  his  own  experience  to 
guide  him.  But  we  are  not  so  situated.  Every  one 
dnects  himself  in  morality,  as  in  all  his  conduct,  not  by 
his  own  unaided  foresight,  but  by  the  accumulated 
wisdom  of  all  former  ages,  embodied  in  traditional 
aphorisms.  So  strong  is  the  disposition  to  submit  to 
the  authority  of  such  traditions,  and  so  little  danger  is 
there,  in  most  conditions  of  mankind,  of  erring  on  the 
other  side,  that  the  absurdest  customs  are  perpetuated 
through  a  lapse  of  ages  from  no  other  cause.  A  hun- 
dred millions  of  human  beings  think  it  the  most  exalted 
virtue  to  swing  by  a  hook  before  an  idol,  and  the  most 
dreadful  pollution  to  drink  cow-broth,  —  only  because 
their  forefathers  thought  so.  A  Turk  thinks  it  the 
height  of  indecency  for  women  to  be  seen  in  the  streets 
unveiled ;  and,  when  he  is  told  that  in  some  countries 
this  happens  without  any  evil  result,  he  shakes  his  head, 
and  says,  "If  you  hold  butter  to  the  fire,  it  will  melt." 
Did  not  many  generations  of  the  most  educated  men  in 
Europe  believe  every  line  of  Aristotle  to  be  infallible  ? 
So  difficult  is  it  to  break  loose  from  a  received  opinion. 
The  progress  of  experience,-  and  the  growth  of  the 
human  intellect,  succeed  but  too  slowly  in  correcting 
and  improving  traditional  opinions.    There  is  little  fear, 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  173 

truly,  that  the  mass  of  mankind  should  insist  upon 
*'  tracing  the  consequences  of  actions "  by  their  own 
unaided  lights  :  they  are  but  too  ready  to  let  it  be  done 
for  them  once  for  all,  and  to  think  they  have  nothing  to 
do  with  rules  of  morality  (as  Tory  writers  say  they  have 
with  the  laws)  but  to  obey  them. 

iMr.  Sedgwick  is  master  of  the  stock  phrases  of  those 
who  know  nothing  of  the  principle  of  utility  but  the 
name.  To  act  upon  rules  of  conduct,  of  which  utility 
is  recognized  as  the  basis ,  he  calls  "  waiting  for  the  cal- 
culations of  utility,"  —  a  thing,  according  to  him,  in 
itself  immoral,  since  "to  hesitate  is  to  rebel."  On  tlie 
same  principle,  navigating  by  rule,  instead  of  by  instinct, 
might  be  called  waiting  for  the  calculations  of  astronomy. 
There  seems  no  absolute  necessity  for  putting  off  the 
calculations  until  the  ship  is  in  the  middle  of  the  South 
Sea.  Because  a  sailor  has  not  verified  all  the  compu- 
tations in  the  Nautical  Almanac,  does  he  therefore 
"hesitate"  to  use  it? 

Thus  far  Mr.  Sedgwick  on  the  difficulties  of  the 
principle  of  utUity,  when  we  mean  to  apply  it  honestly. 
But  he  further  charges  the  principle  with  having  a 
"  debasing  "  and  "  degrading  "  effect. 

A  word  like  "  debasing,"  applied  to  any  thing  which 
acts  upon  the  mind,  may  mean  several  things.  It  may 
mean,  making  us  unprincipled;  regardless  of  the  rights 
and  feelings  of  other  people.  It  may  mean,  making  us 
slavish  ;  spiritless  ;  submissive  to  injury  or  insult ;  inca- 
pable of  asserting  our  own  rights,  and  vindicating  the 
just  independence  of  our  minds  and  actions.  It  may 
mean,  making  us  cowardly;  slothful ;  incapable  of  bear- 
ing pain,  or  nerving  ourselves  to  exertion  for  a  worthy 


174  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

object.  It  may  mean,  making  us  narrow-minded ; 
pusillanimous,  in  Hobbes's  sense  of  the  word  ;  too  intent 
upon  little  things  to  feel  rightly  about  great  ones ;  in- 
capable of  having  om:  imagination  fired  by  a  grand 
object  of  contemplation  ;  incapable  of  thinking,  feeling, 
aspiring,  or  acting,  on  any  but  a  small  scale.  An 
opinion  which  produced  any  of  these  effects  upon  the 
mind  would  be  rightly  called  debasing.  But  when, 
without  proving,  or  even  in  plain  terms  asserting,  that 
it  produces  these  effects,  or  any  effects  which  he  can 
make  distinctly  understood,  a  man  merely  says  of  an 
Opinion  that  it  is  debasing,  all  he  really  says  is  that  he 
has  a  feeling  which  he  cannot  exactly  describe,  but 
upon  which  he  values  himself,  and  to  which  the  opinion 
is  in  some  way  or  other  offensive.  What  definite  prop- 
osition concerning  the  effect  of  any  doctrine  on  the 
mind  can  be  extracted  from  such  a  passage  as  this  ?  — 

"If  expediency  be  the  measure  of  right,  and  every  one 
claim  the  liberty  of  judgment,  virtue  and  vice  have  no  longer 
any  fixed  relations  to  the  moral  condition  of  man,  but  change 
with  the  fluctuations  of  opinion.  Not  only  are  his  actions 
tainted  by  prejudice  and  passion,  but  his  rule  of  life,  under 
tfcis  system,  must  be  tainted  in  like  degi'ee,  —  must  be  brought 
down  to  its  own  level ;  for  he  will  no  longer  be  able,  com- 
patibly with  his  principles,  to  separate  the  rule  from  its  appli- 
cation. No  high  and  unvaiying  standard  of  morality  which 
his  heart  approves,  however  infirm  his  practice,  will  be  offered 
to  his  thoughts.  But  his  bad  passions  will  continue  to  do 
their  work  in  bending  him  to  the  earth  ;  and,  unless  he  be  held 
upright  by  the  strong  power  of  religion  (an  extrinsic  power 
which  I  am  not  now  considering),  he  will  inevitably  be  carried 
down,  by  a  degrading  standard  of  action,  to  a  sordid  and 
grovelfing  life.     It  may  perhaps  be  said  that  we  are  arguing 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  175 

against  a  rule,  only  from  its  misapprehension  and  abuse.  But 
we  reply,  that  every  precept  is  practically  bad  when  its  abuse 
is  natural  and  inevitable  ;  that  the  system  of  utility  brings 
down  Virtue  from  a  heavenly  throne,  and  places  her  on  an 
earthly  tribunal,  where  her  decisions,  no  longer  supported  by 
any  holy  sanction,  are  distorted  by  judicial  ignorance,  and 
tainted  by  base  passion."  —  p.  63. 

What  does  this  tell  us?  First,  that,  if  utility  be  the 
standard,  different  persons  may  have  different  opinions 
on  morality.  Tliis  is  the  talk  about  uncertainty,  which 
has  been  already  disposed  of.  Next,  that,  where  there 
is  uncertainty,  men's  passions  will  bias  their  judgment. 
Gi'anted :  this  is  one  of  the  evils  of  our  condition,  and 
must  be  borne  with.  We  do  not  diminish  it  by  pre- 
tending that  Nature  tells  us  what  is  right,  when  nobody  ' 
ever  ventures  to  set  down  what  Nature  tells  us,  nor 
affects  to  expound  her  laws  in  any  way  but  by  an  appeal 
to  utility.  All  that  the  remainder  of  the  passage  does, 
is  to  repeat,  in  various  phrases,  that  Mr.  Sedgwick  feels 
such  a  "  standard  of  action  "  to  be  "  degrading ;  "  that 
Mr.  Sedgwick  feels  it  to  be  "sordid"  and  "grovelling." 
If  so,  nobody  can  compel  Mr.  Sedgwick  to  adopt  it. 
If  he  feels  it  debasing,  no  doubt  it  would  be  so  to  him ; 
but,  until  he  is  able  to  show  some  reason  why  it  must 
be  so  to  others,  may  we  be  permitted  to  suggest,  that 
perhaps  the  cause  of  its  being  so  to  himself  is  only  that 
he  does  not  understand  it? 

Read  this  :  —  ' 

"  Christianity  considers  every  act  grounded  on  mere  worldly 
consequences  as  built  on  a  false  foundation.  The  mainspring 
of  every  virtue  is  placed  by  it  in  the  affections,  called  into 
renewed  strength  by  a  feeling  of  self-abasement,  by  gratitude 


176  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

for  an  immortal  benefit,  by  communion  with  God,  and  by 
the  hopes  of  everlasting  life.  Humility  is  the  foundation 
of  the  Christian's  honor ;  distrust  of  self  is  the  ground  of  his 
strength ;  and  his  religion  tells  him  that  every  work  of  man 
is  counted  worthless  in  the  sight  of  Heaven,  as  the  means 
of  his  pardon  or  the  price  of  his  redemption.  Yet  it  gives 
him  a  pure  and  perfect  rule  of  life,  and  does  not  for  an 
instant  exempt  him  from  the  duty  of  obedience  to  his  rule : 
for  it  ever  aims  at  a  purgation  of  the  moral  faculties,  and  a 
renewal  of  the  defaced  image  of  God ;  and  its  moral  precepts 
have  an  everlasting  sanction.  And  thus  does  Christian  love 
become  an  efficient  and  abiding  principle,  not  tested  by  the 
world,  but  above  the  world ;  yet  reaching  the  life-spring  of 
every  virtuous  deed,  and  producing  in  its  season  a  harvest  of 
good  and  noble  works  incomparably  more  abundant  than  ever 
rose  from  any  other  soil. 

"  The  utilitarian  scheme  starts,  on  the  contrary,  with  an 
abrogation  of  the  authority  of  conscience,  —  a  rejection  of  the 
moral  feelings  as  the  test  of  righrand  wrong.  From  first  to 
last,  it  is  in  bondage  to  the  world,  measuring  every  act  by  a 
worldly  standard,  and  estimating  its  value  by  worldly  conse- 
quences. Virtue  becomes  a  question  of  calculation,  —  a 
matter  of  profit  or  loss ;  and,  if  man  gain  heaven  at  all  on 
such  a  system,  it  must  be  by  arithmetical  details,  —  the  com- 
putation of  his  daily  work,  —  the  balance  of  his  moral  ledger. 
A  conclusion  such  as  this  offends  against  the  spirit  breathing 
in  every  page  of  the  book  of  life  ;  yet  is  it  fairly  drawn  from 
the  principle  of  utility.  It  appeal's,  indeed,  not  only  to  have 
been  foreseen  by  Paley,  but  to  have  been  accepted  by  him ;  a 
striking  instance  of  the  tenacity  Avith  which  man  ever  clings 
to  system,  and  is  ready  to  embrace  even  its  monstrous  conse- 
quences rather  than  believe  that  he  has  himself  been  building 
on  a  wrong  foundation."  —  pp.  66,  67. 

In  a  note,  he  adds  :  — 

"  The  following  are  the  passages  here  refeired  to :  — 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  177 

" '  The  Christian  religion  hath  not  ascertained  the  precise 
quantity  of  virtue  necessary  to  salvation.' 

" '  It  has  been  said,  that  it  can  never  be  a  just  economy  of 
Providence  to  admit  one  part  of  mankind  into  heaven,  and 
condemn  the  other  to  hell ;  since  there  must  be  very  little  to 
choose  between  the  worst  man  who  is  received  into  heaven, 
and  the  best  who  is  excluded.  And  how  know  we,  it  might 
be  answered,  but  that  there  may  be  as  little  to  choose  in  their 
conditions  ? '  —  Moral  Philosophy,  book  i.  ch.  7. 

"In  the  latter  years  of  his  life,  Paley  would,  I  believe, 
have  been  incapable  of  uttering  or  conceiving  sentiments  such 
as  these." 

So  that  a  "  purgation  of  the  moral  faculties "  is 
necessary :  the  moral  feelings  require  to  be  corrected. 
Yet  the  moral  feelings  are  "  the  test  of  right  and 
wrong ;  "  and  whoever  "  rejects  "  them  as  a  test  must 
be  called  hard  names.  But  we  do  not  want  to  convict 
Mr.  Sedgwick  of  inconsistency :  we  want  to  get  at  his 
meanitig.  Have  we  come  to  it  at  last  ?  The  gravamen 
of  the  charge  against  the  principle  of  utility  seems 
to  lie  in  a  word.  Utility  is  a  worldly  standard,  and 
estimates  every  act  by  worldly  consequences. 

Like  most  persons  who  are  speaking,  from  their  feel- 
ings only,  on  a  subject  on  which  they  have  never  seri- 
ously thought,  the  professor  is  imposed  upon  by  words. 
He  is  carried  away  by  an  ambiguity.  To  make  his 
assertion  about  the  worldliness  of  the  standard  of 
utility  true,  it  must  be  understood  in  one  sense ;  to 
make  it  have  the  invidious  effect  which  is  intended,  it 
must  be  understood  in  another.  By  "worldly,"  does 
he  mean  to  imply  what  is  commonly  meant  when  the 
word  is  used  as  a  reproach,  —  an  undue  regard  to  in- 
terest in  the  vulgar  sense ;    our  wealth,  power,  social 

VOL.  I     ,  12 


178  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

position,  and  the  like ;  our  command  over  agreeable 
outward  objects,  and  over  the  opinion  and  good  offices 
of  other  people?  If  so,  to  call  utility  a  worldly  stan- 
dard is  to  misrepresent  the  doctrine.  It  is  not  true 
that  utility  estimates  actions  by  this  sort  of  conse- 
quences :  it  estimates  them  by  all  their  consequences. 
If  he  means  that  the  principle  of  utility  regards  only 
(to  use  a  scholastic  distinction)  the  objective  conse- 
quences of  actions,  and  omits  the  subjective  ;  attends  to 
the  effects  on  our  outward  condition,  and  that  of  other 
people,  too  much ;  to  those  on  our  internal  sources  of 
happiness  or  unhappiness  too  little',  —  this  criticism  is,  as 
we  have  already  remarked,  in  some  degree  applicable 
to  Paley  :  but  to  charge  this  blunder  upon  the  principle 
of  utility,  would  be  to  say,  that,  if  it  is  your  rule  to 
judge  of  a  thing  by  its  consequences,  you  will  judge 
only  by  a  portion  of  them.  Again  :  if  Mr.  Sedgwick 
meant  to  speak  of  a  "  worldly  standard "  in  contra- 
distinction to  a  religious  standard,  and  to  say,  that,  if 
we  adopt  the  principle  of  utility,  we  cannot  admit 
religion  as  a  sanction  for  it,  or  cannot  attach  impor- 
tance to  religious  motives  or  feelings,  the  assertion 
would  be  simply  false,  and  a  gross  injustice  even  to 
Paley.  What,  therefore,  can  Mr.  Sedgwick  mean? 
Merely  this '  that  our  actions  take  place  in  the  world  ; 
that  their  consequences  are  produced  in  the  world  ;  that 
we  have  been  placed  in  the  world ;  and  that  there,  if 
anyAvhere,  we  must  earn  a  place  in  heaven.  The 
morality  founded  on  utility  allows  this,  certainly  :  does 
Mr.  SedgAvick's  system  of  morality  deny  it? 

Mark  the  confusion  of  ideas  involved  in  this  sen- 
tence :    "  Christianity  considers  every  act  grounded  on 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discouesb.  179 

mere  worldly  consequences  as  built  on  a  false  founda- 
tion." TlTiat  is  saving  a  father  from  death,  but  saving 
him  from  a  worldly  consequence?  What  are  healing 
the  sick,  clothing  the  naked,  sheltering  the  houseless, 
but  acts  which  wholly  consist  in  producing  a  worldly 
consequence?  Confine  Mi*.  Sedgwick  to  unambiguous 
words,  and  he  is  already  answered.  What  is  really 
true  is,  that  Christianity  considers  no  act  as  meritori- 
ous which  is  done  from  mere  worldly  motives;  that  is, 
which  is  in  no  degree  prompted  by  the  desire  of  our 
own  moral  perfection,  or  of  the  approbation  of  a  perfect 
being.  These  motives,  we  need  scarcely  observe,  may 
be  equally  powerful,  whatever  be  our  standard  of  mo- 
rality, provided  we  believe  that  the  Deity  approves  it. 

Mr.  Sedgwick  is  scandalized  at  the  supposition,  that 
the  place  awarded  to  each  of  us  in  the  next  world  will 
depend  on  the  balance  of  the  good  and  evil  of  our  lives. 
According  to  his  notions  of  justice,  we  presume,  it 
ought  to  depend  wholly  upon  one  of  the  two.  As 
usual,  Mr.  Sedgwick  begins  by  a  misapprehension  :  he 
neither  understands  Paley,  nor  the  conclusion  which, 
he  says,  is  "fairly  drawn  from  the  principles  of  utility." 
Paley  held,  with  other  Cliristians,  that  our  place  here- 
after would  be  determined  by  our  degree  of  moral 
perfection ;  that  is,  by  the  balance,  not  of  our  good 
and  evil  deeds,  which  depend  upon  opportunity  and 
temptation,  but  of  our  good  and  evil  dispositions ;  by 
the  intensity  and  continuity  of,  our  will  to  do  good ; 
by  the  strength  with  which  we  have  struggled  to  be 
virtuous ;  not  by  our  accidental  lapses,  or  by  the  un- 
intended good  or  evil  which  has  followed  from  our 
actions.      When  Paley  said  that  Christianity  has   not 


180  PKor.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

« 

ascertained  "  the  precise  quantity  of  virtue  necessary  to 
salvation,"  he  did  not  mean  the  number  or  kind  of 
beneficial  actions  :  he  meant  that  Christianity  has  not 
decided  what  positive  strength  of  virtuous  inclinations, 
and  what  capacity  of  resisting  temptations,  will  procure 
acquittal  at  the  tribunal  of  God.  And  most  msely  is 
this  left  undecided.  Nor  can  there  be  a  solution  more 
consistent  with  the  attributes  which  Christianity  as-, 
cribes  to  the  Deity  than  Paley's  own,  — that  every  step 
of  advance  in  moral  perfection  will  be  something  gained 
towards  everlasting  welfare. 

The  remainder  of  Mr.  Sedgwick's  argument  —  if 
argument  it  can  be  called  —  is  a  perpetual  ignoratio 
elenchi.  He  lumps  up  the  principle  of  utility  —  which 
is  a  theory  of  right  and  wrong  —  with  the  theory,  if 
there  be  such  a  theory,  of  the  universal  selfishness  of 
mankind.  We  never  know,  for  many  sentences  to- 
gether, which  of  the  two  he  is  arguing  against :  he 
never  seems  to  know  it  himself.  He  begins  a  sentence 
on  the  one,  and  ends  it  on  the  other.  In  his  mind, 
they  seem  to  be  one  and  the  same.      Read  this :  — 

"  Utilitarian  philosophy  and  Christian  ethics  have  in  their 
principles  and  motives  no  common  bond  of  union,  and  ought 
never  to  have  been  linked  together  in  one  system ;  for,  palliate 
and  disguise  the  difference  as  we  may,  we  shall  find  at  last 
that  they  rest  on  separate  foundations,  —  one  deriving  all  its 
strength  from  the  moral  feelings,  and  the  other  from  the  self- 
ish passions  of  our  nature."  —  p.  67. 

Or  this  :  — 

"  If  we  suppress  the  authority  of  conscience,  reject  the 
moral  feelings,  rid  ourselves  of  the  sentiments  of  honor,  and 
sink  (as  men  too  often  do)  below  the  influence  of  religion; 


PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  181 

and  if,  at  the  same  time,  we  are  taught  to  think  that  utility 
is  the  universal  test  of  right  and  wrong,  —  what  is  there  left 
within  us  as  an  antagonist  power  to  the  craving  of  passion,  or 
the  base  appetite  of  worldly  gain  ?  In  such  a  condition  of  the 
soul,  all  motive  not  terminating  in  mere  passion  becomes 
utterly  devoid  of  meaning.  On  this  system,  the  sinner  is  no 
longer  abhorred  as  a  rebel  against  his  better  nature,  —  as  one 
who  profanely  mutilates  the  image  of  God ;  he  acts  only  on 
■the  principles  of  other  men ;  but  he  blunders  in  calculating  the 
chances  of  his  personal  advantage,  and  thus  we  deprive 
virtue  of  its  holiness,  and  vice  of  its  deformity ;  humanity  of 
its  honor,  and  language  of  its  meaning ;  we  shut  out,  as  no 
better  than  madness  or  folly,  the  loftiest  sentiments  of  the 
heathen  as  well  as  of  the  Christian  world ;  and  all  that  is 
great  or  generous  in  our  nature  droops  under  the  influence  of 
a  cold  and  withering  selfishness."  —  pp.  76,  77. 

Every  line  of  this  passage  convicts  Mr.  Sedgwick 
of  never  having  taken  the  trouble  to  know  the  mean- 
ing of  the  terms  in  which  the  doctrine  he  so  eagerly 
vilifies  is  conveyed.  What  has  "  calculating  the  chances 
of  personal  advantage"  to  do  with  the  principle  of 
utility?  The  object  of  Mr.  Sedgwick  is  to  represent 
that  principle  as  leading  to  the  conclusion,  that  a  vicious 
man  is  no  more  a  subject  of  disapprobation  than  a 
person  who  blunders  in  a  question  of  prudence.  If 
Mr.'  Sedgwick  did  but  know  what  the  principle  of  utility 
is,  he  would  see  that  it  leads  to  do  such  conclusion. 
Some  people  have  been  led  to  that  conclusion,  not  by 
the  principle  of  utility,  but  either  by  the  doctrine  of 
philosophical  necessity  incorrectly  understood,  or  by  a 
theory  of  motives  which  has  been  called  the  selfish  the- 
ory ;  and  even  from  that  it  does  not  justly  follow. 

The  finery  about   shutting    out  "  lofty  sentiments " 


182  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

scarcely  deserves  notice.  It  resembles  what  is  said  in 
the  next  page  about  "  suppressing  all  the  kindly  emo- 
tions which  minister  to  virtue."  We  are  far  from 
charging  INIr.  Sedgwick  with  wilfiil  misrepresentation ; 
but  this  is  the  very  next  thing  to  it,  —  misrepresenta- 
tion in  voluntary  ignorance.  Who  proposes  to  suppress 
any  "kindly  emotion"?  Human  beings,  the  professor 
may  be  assured,  will  always  love  and  honor  every  sen- 
timent, whether  "lofty"  or  otherwise,  which  is  either 
directly  pointed  to  their  good,  or  tends  to  raise  the  mind 
abovQ  the  influence  of  the  petty  objects  for  the  sake 
of  which  mankind  injure  one  another.  The  professor 
is  afraid  that  the  sinner  will  be  "  no  longer  abhorred." 
We  imagined  that  it  was  not  the  sinner  who  should  be 
abhorred,  but  sin.  Mankind,  however,  are  sufficiently 
ready  to  abhor  whatever  is  obviously  noxious  to  them. 
A  human  being  filled  with  malevolent  dispositions,  or 
coldly  indifferent  to  the  feelings  of  liis  fellow-creatures, 
will  never,  the  professor  may  assure  himself,  be  amiable 
in  their  eyes.  Whether  they  will  speak  of  him  as  "  a 
rebel  against  his  better  nature  "  —  "  one  who  profanely 
mutilates  the  image  of  God,"  and  so  on  —  will  depend 
upon  whether  they  are  proficients  in  commonplace 
rhetoric ;  but,  whatever  words  they  use,  rely  on  it,  that 
while  men  dread  and  abhor  a  wolf  or  a  serpent,  which 
have  no  better  nature,  and  no  image  of  God  to  mutilate, 
they  will  abhor  with  infinitely  greater  intensity  a  human 
being,  who,  outwardly  resembling  themselves,  is  in- 
wardly their  enemy,  and,  being  far  more  powerful  than 
"  toad  or  asp,"  voluntarily  cherishes  the  same  disposi- 
tion to  mischief. 

If  utility  be  the  standard,  "the  end,"  in  the  profes- 


PEOF.  Sedgwick's  discouese.  183 

sor's  opinion,  "will  be  made  to  sanctify  the  means" 
(p.  78).  We  answer,  Just  so  far  as  in  any  other 
system,  and  no  farther.  In  every  system  of  morality, 
the  end,  when  good,  justifies  all  means  which  do  not 
conflict  with  some  more  important  good.  On  Mr. 
Sedgwick's  own  scheme,  are  there  not  ends  which  sanc- 
tify actions,  in  other  cases  deserving  the  utmost  abhor- 
rence, —  such,  for  instance,  as  taking  the  life  of  a 
fellow-creature  in  cold  bloody  in  the  face  of  the  whole 
people  ?  According  to  the  principle  of  utility,  the  end 
justifies  all  means  necessary  to  its  attainment,  except 
those  which  are  more  mischievous  than  the  end  is 
useful ;   an  exception  amply  suflScient. 

We  have  now  concluded  our  examination  of  Mr. 
Sedgwick  :  first,  as  a  commentator  on  the  studies  which 
form  part  of  a  liberal  education ;  and,  next,  as  an  as- 
sailant of  the  "utilitarian  theory  of  morals."  We 
have  shown,  that,  on  the  former  subject,  he  has  omitted 
almost  every  thing  which  ought  to  have  been  said ;  that 
almost  all  which  he  has  said  is  trivial,  and  much  of  it 
erroneous.  With  regard  to  the  other  part  of  his  design, 
we  have  shown  that  he  has  not  only  failed  to  refute 
the  doctrine  that  human  happiness  is  the  foundation  of 
morality,  but  has,  in  the  attempt,  proved  himseh  not 
to  understand  what  the  doctrine  is ;  and  to  be  capable 
of  bringing;  the  most  serious  charges  against  other 
men's  opinions,  and  themselves,  which  even  a  smatter- 
ing of  the  knowledge  appropriate  to  the  subject  would 
have  shown  to  be  groundless. 

We  by  no  means  affect  to  consider  Mr.  Sedgwick  as 
(what  he  would  not  himself  claim  to  be)  a  sufficient 


184  PROF.  Sedgwick's  discourse. 

advocate  of  the  cause  he  has  espoused,  nor  pretend  that 
his  pages  contain  the  best  that  can  be  said,  or  even  the 
best  that  has  been  said,  against  the  theory  of  utility. 
That  theory  numbers,  among  its  enemies,  minds  of  al- 
most every  degree  of  power  and  intellectual  accomplish- 
ments, among  whom  many  are  capable  of  making  out 
a  much  better  apparent  case  for  their  opinion.  But 
Mr.  Sedgwick's  is  a  fair  enough  sample  of  the  popular 
arguments  against  the  theory  :  his  book  has  had  more 
readers  and  more  applauders  than  a  better  book  would 
have  had,  because  it  is  level  with  a  lower  class  of  capa- 
cities ;  and  though,  by  pointing  out  its  imperfections, 
we  do  little  to  establish  our  own  opinion,  it  is  some- 
thing to  have  shown  on  how  light  grounds,  in  some 
cases,  men  of  gravity  and  reputation  arraign  the  opinion, 
and  are  admired  and  applauded  for  so  arraigning  it. 

The  question  is  not  one  of  pure  speculation.  Not 
to  mention  the  importance,  to  those  who  are  intrusted 
with  the  education  of  the  moral  sentiments,  of  just 
views  respecting  their  origin  and  nature,  we  may  re- 
mark, that,  upon  the  truth  or  falseness  of  the  doctrine 
of  a  moral  sense,  it  depends  whether  morality  is  a  fixed 
or  a  progressive  body  of,  doctrine.  If  it  be  true  that 
man  has  a  sense  given  him  to  determine  what  is  ri<2^ht 
and  wrong,  it  follows  that  his  moral  judgments  and 
feelings  cannot  be  susceptible  of  any  improvement : 
such  as  they  are,  they  ought  to  remain.  The  question, 
what  mankind  in  general  ought  to  think  and  feel  on  the 
subject  of  their  duty,  must  be  determined  by  observing 
what,  when  no  interest  or  passion  can  be  seen  to  bias 
them,  they  think  and  feel  already.  According  to  the 
theory  of  utility,  «n  the  contrary,  the  question,  what  is 


PEOF.  Sedgwick's  discourse.  185 

our  duty,  is  as  open  to  discussion  as  any  other  question. 
Moral  doctrines  are  no  more  to  be  received  without 
evidence,  nor  to  be  sifted  less  carefully,  than  any  other 
doctrines.  An  appeal  lies,  as  on  all  other  subjects, 
from  a  received  opinion,  hovs^ever  generally  entertained, 
to  the  decisions  of  cultivated  reason.  The  weakness 
of  human  intellect,  and  all  the  other  infirmities  of  our 
nature,  are  considered  to  interfere  as  much  with  the 
rectitude  of  our  judgments  on  morality  as  on  any  other 
of  our  concerns ;  and  changes  as  great  are  anticipated 
in  our  opinions  on  that  subject  as  on  every  other,  both 
from  the  progress  of  intelligence,  from  more  authentic 
and  enlarged  experience,  and  from  alterations  in  the 
condition  of  the  human  race,  requiring  altered  rules 
of  conduct. 

It  deeply  concerns  the  greatest  interests  of  our  race, 
that  the  only  mode  of  treating  ethical  questions  which 
aims  at  correcting  existing  maxims,  and  rectifying  any 
of  the  perversions  of  existing  feeling,  should  not  be 
borne  .down  by  clamor.  The  contemners  of  analysis 
have  long  enough  had  all  the  pretension  to  themselves. 
They  have  had  the  monopoly  of  the  claim  to  pure  and 
lofty  and  sublime  principles ;  and  those  who  gave  rea- 
sons to  justify  their  feelings  have  submitted  to  be  cried 
down  as  low  and  cold  and  degraded.  We  hope  they 
will  submit  no  longer ;  and,  not  content  with  meeting 
the  metaphysics  of  their  more  powerful  adversaries  by 
profounder  metaphysics,  will  join  battle  in  the  field  of 
popular  controversy  with  every  antagonist  of  name  and 
reputation,  even  when,  as  in  the  present  case,  his  name 
and  reputation  are  his  only  claims  to  be  heard  on  such 
a  subject. 


186 


CIVILIZATION.* 


The  word  "  civilization,"  like  many  other  terras  of  the 
philosophy  of  human  nature,  is  a  word  of  double  mean- 
ing. It  sometimes  stands  for  human  improvement  in 
general,  and  sometimes  for  certain  hinds  of  improve- 
ment in  particular. 

We  are  accustomed  to  call  a  country  more  civilized 
if  we  think  it  more  improved ;  more  eminent  in  the 
best  characteristics  of  man  and  society ;  farther  ad- 
vanced in  the  road  to  perfection;  happier,  nobler,  wiser. 
This  is  one  sense  of  the  word  "  civilization."  But,  in 
another  sense,  it  stands  for  that  kind  of  improvement 
only  which  distinguishes  a  wealthy  and  powerful  nation 
from  savages  or  barbarians.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  we 
may  speak  of  the  vices  or  the  miseries  of  civilization ; 
and  that  the  question  has  been  seriously  propounded, 
whether  civilization  is,  on  the  whole,  a  good  or  an  evil. 
/  Assuredly,  we  entertain  no  doubt  on  this  point :  we 
hold  that  civilization  is  a  good ;  that  it  is  the  cause  of 
much  good,  and  not  incompatible  with  any  ;  but  we 
think  there  is  other  good,  much  even  of  the  highest 
good,  which  civilization  in  this  sense  does  not  provide 
for,  and  some  which  it  has  a  tendency  (though  that 
tendency  may  be  counteracted)  to  impede. 

*  London  and  Westminster  Review,  April,  1836. 


CIVILIZATION.  187 

The  inquiry  into  which  these  considerations  would 
lead  is  calculated  to  throw  light  upon  many  of  the 
characteristic  features  of  our  time.  The  present  era  is 
pre-eminently  the  era  of  civilization  in  the  narrow 
sense,  —  whether  we  consider  what  has  already  been 
achieved,  or  the  rapid  advances  making  towards  still 
greater  achievements.  We  do  not  regard  the  age  as 
either  equally  advanced  or  equally  progressive  in  many 
of  the  other  kinds  of  improvement.  In  some,  it  appears 
to  us  stationary ;  in  some,  even  retrograde.  Moreover, 
the  irresistible  consequences  of  a  state  of  advancing 
civilization  ;  the  new  position  in  which  that  advance  has 
placed,  and  is  every  day  more  and  more  placing,  man- 
kind ;  the  entire  inapplicability  of  old  rules  to  this  new 
position ;  and  the  necessity,  if  we  would  either  realize 
the  benefits  of  the  new  state  or  preserve  those  of  the 
old,  that  we  should  adopt  many  new  rules,  and  new 
courses  of  action,  —  are  topics  which  seem  to  require  a 
more  comprehensive  examination  than  they  have  usually 
received. 

We  shall  on  the  present  occasion  use  the  word  "  civili- 
zation "  only  in  the  restricted  sense ;  not  that  in  which 
it  is  synonymous  with  improvement,  but  that  in  which  it 
is  the  direct  converse  or  contrary  of  rudeness  or  barba- 
rism. Whatever  be  the  characteristics  of  what  we  call 
savage  life,  the  contrary  of  these,  or  the  qualities  which 
society  puts  on  as  it  throws  off  these,  constitute  civili- 
zation. Thus  a  savage  tribe  consists  of  a  handful  of 
individuals,  wandering  or  thinly  scattered  over  a  vast 
tract  of  country :  a  dense  population,  therefore,  dwell- 
ing in  fixed  habitations,  and  largely  collected  together 


\ 


188  CIVILIZATION. 

in  towns  and  villages,  we  term  civilized.  In  savage 
life,  there  is  no  commerce,  no  manufactures,  no  agricul- 
ture, or  next  to  none  :  a  country  rich  in  the  fruits  of 
agriculture,  commerce,  and  manufactures,  we  call  civil- 
ized. In  savage  communities,  each  person  shifts  for 
himself:  except  in  war  (and  even  then  very  imper- 
fectly), we  seldom  see  any  joint  operations  carried  on 
by  the  union  of  many;  nor  do  savages,  in  general, 
find  much  pleasure  in  each  other's  society.  Wherever, 
/  therefore,  we  find  human  beings  acting  together  for 
common  purposes  in  large  bodies,  and  enjoying  the 
pleasures  of  social  intercourse,  we  term  them  civilized. 
In  savage  life,  there  is  little  or  no  law,  or  administration 
of  justice  ;  no  systematic  employment  of  the  collective 
strength  of  society  to  protect  individuals  against  injury 
from  one  another :  every  one  trusts  to  his  own  strength 
or  cunning;  and,  where  that  fails,  he  is  generally  without 
resource.  We  accordingly  call  a  people  civilized,  where 
the  arrangements  of  society  for  protecting  the  persons 
and  property  of  its  members  are  sufiiciently  perfect  to 
maintain  peace  among  them;  i.e.,  to  induce  the  bulk 
of  the  community  to  rely  for  their  security  mainly  upon 
social  arrangements,  and  renounce  for  the  most  part, 
and  in  ordinary  circumstances,  the  vindication  of  their 
interests  (whether  in  the  way  of  aggression  or  of  de- 
\     fence)  by  their  individual  strength  or  courage. 

These  ingredients  of  civilization  are  various ;  but  con- 
sideration will  satisfy  us  that  they  are  not  improperly 
classed  together.  History,  and  their  own  nature,  alike 
show  that  they  begin  together,  always  co-exist,  and 
accompany  each  other  in  their  growth.  Wherever 
there  has  arisen  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  arts  of  life, 


f 


CIVILIZATION.  189 

and  sufficient  seciu'itj  of  property  and  person,  to  render 
the  progressive  increase  of  wealth  and  population  possi- 
ble, the  community  becomes  and  continues  progressive 
in  all  the  elements  which  we  have  just  enumerated. 
These  elements  exist  in  modern  Europe,  and  especially 
in  Great  Britain,  in  a  more  eminent  degree,  and  in  a 
state  of  more  rapid  progression,  than  at  any  other  place 
or  time.  We  propose  to  consider  some  of  the  conse- 
quences which  that  high  and  progressive  state  of  civili- 
zation has  already  produced,  and  of  the  further  ones 
which  it  is  hastening  to  produce. 

The  most  remarkable  of  those  consequences  of  ad- 
vancing civilization,  which  the  state  of  the  world  is  now 
forcing  upon  the  attention  of  thinking  minds,  is  this,  — 
that  power  passes  more  and  more  from  individuals,  and 
small  knots  of  individuals,  to  masses ;  that  the  impor- 
tance of  the  masses  becomes  constantly  greater,  that 
of  individuals  less. 

The  causes,  evidences,  and  consequences  of  this  law 
of  human  affairs  well  deserve  attention. 

There  are  two  elements  of  importance  and  influence  ( 
among  mankind :  the  one  is  property ;  the  other, 
powers  and  acquirements  of  mind.  Both  of  these,  in 
an  early  stage  of  civilization,  are  confined  to  a  few  per- 
sons. In  the  beginnings  of  society,  the  power  of  the 
masses  does  not  exist,  because  property  and  intelligence 
have  no  existence  beyond  a  very  small  portion  of  the 
community  ;  and,  even  if  they  had,  those  who  possessed 
the  smaller  portions  would  be,  from  their  incapacity  of 
co-operation,  unable  to  cope  with  those  who  possessed 
the  larger. 


Z. 


190  CIVILIZATION. 

In  the  more  backward  countries  of  the  present  time, 
and  in  all  Europe  at  no  distant  date,  we  see  property 
entirely  concentrated  in  a  small  number  of  hands ;  the 
remainder  of  the  people  being,  with  few  exceptions, 
either  the  military  retainers  and  dependants  of  the 
possessors  of  property,  or  serfs,  stripped  and  tortured 
at  pleasure  by  one  master,  and  pillaged  by  a  hundred. 
At  no  period  could  it  be  said  that  there  was  literally  no 
middle  class,  but  that  class  was  extremely  feeble,  both 
in  numbers  and  in  power ;  while  the  laboring  people, 
absorbed  in  manual  toil,  with  difficulty  earned,  by  the 
utmost  excess  of  exertion,  a  more  or  less  scanty  and 
always  precarious  subsistence.  The  character  of  this 
state  of  society  was  the  utmost  excess  of  poverty  and 
impotence  in  the  masses  ;  the  most  enormous  importance 
and  uncontrollable  power  of  a  small  number  of  individ- 
uals, each  of  whom,  within  his  own  sphere,  knew 
neither  law  nor  superior. 

We  must  leave  to  history  to  unfold  the  gradual  rise 
of  the  trading  and  manufacturing  classes,  the  gradual 
emancipation  of  the  agricultural,  the  tumults  and  houle- 
versements  which  accompanied  these  changes  in  their 
course,  and  the  extraordinary  alterations  in  institutions, 
opinions,  habits,  and  the  whole  of  social  life,  which  they 
brought  in  their  train.  We  need  only  ask  the  reader 
to  form  a  conception  of  all  that  is  implied  in  the  words 
"growth  of  a  middle  class,"  and  then  to  reflect  on  the 
immense  increase  of  the  numbers  and  property  of  that 
class  throughout  Great  Britain,  France,  Germany,  and 
other  countries,  in  every  successive  generation,  and  the 
novelty  of  a  laboring  class  receiving  such  wages  as  are 
now  commonly  earned  by  nearly  the  whole  of  the  manu- 


CIVILIZATIOX.  191 

factui-ing,  that  is,  of  the  most  numerous,  portion  of  the 
operative  classes  of  this  country,  —  and  ask  himself, 
whether,  from  causes  so  unheard  of,  unheard-of  effects 
ought  not  to  be  expected  to  flow.  It  must  at  least  be 
evident,  that  if,  as  civilization  advances,  property  and 
intelligence  become  thus  widely  diffused  among  the 
millions,  it  must  also  be  an  effect  of  civilization,  that 
the  portion  of  either  of  these  which  can  belong  to  an 
individual  must  have  a  tendency  to  become  less  and  less 
influential,  and  all  results  must  more  and  more  be  de- 
cided by  the  movements  of  masses,  provided  that  the 
power  of  combination  among  the  masses  keeps  pace 
with  the  progress  of  their  resources.  And  that  it  does 
so,  who  can  doubt?  There  is  not  a  more  accurate  test 
of  the  progress  of  civilization  than  the  progress  of  the 
power  of  co-operation. 

Consider  the  savage  :  he  has  bodHy  strength,  he  has 
courage,  enterprise,  and  is  often  not  without  intelli- 
gence. What  makes  all  savage  communities  poor  and 
feeble?  The  same  cause  which  prevented  the  lions  and 
tigers  from  long  ago  extirpating  the  race  of  men,  — 
incapacity  of  co-operation.  It  is  only  civilized  beings 
who  can  combine.  All  combination  is  compromised:  it 
is  the  sacrifice  of  some  portion  of  individual  will  for  a 
common  purpose.  The  savage  cannot  bear  to  sacrifice, 
for  any  purpose,  the  satisfaction  of  his  individual  will. 
His  social  cannot  even  temporarily  prevail  over  his 
selfish  feelings,  nor  his  impulses  bend  to  his  calcula- 
tions. Look  again  at  the  slave  :  he  is  used,  indeed,  to 
make  his  will  give  way,  but  to  the  commands  of  a 
master,  not  to  a  superior  purpose  of  his  own.  He  is 
wanting  in  intelligence  to  form  such  a  purpose :  above 


192  CIVILIZATION. 

all,  he  cannot  frame  to  himself  the  conception  of  a  fixed 
rule ;  nor,  if  he  could,  has  he  the  capacity  to  adhere  to 
it.  He  is  habituated  to  control,  but  not  to  self-control : 
when  a  driver  is  not  standing  over  him  with  a  whip,  he 
is  found  more  incapable  of  withstanding  any  tempta- 
tion, or  restraining  any  inclination,  than  the  savage 
himself. 

We  have  taken  extreme  cases,  that  the  fact  we  seek 
to  illustrate  might  stand  out  more  conspicuously.  But 
the  remark  itself  applies  universally.  As  any  people 
approach  to  the  condition  of  savages  or  of  slaves,  so 
are  they  incapable  of  acting  in  concert.  Consider  even 
war,  the  most  serious  business  of  a  barbarous  people : 
see  what  a  figure  rude  nations,  or  semi-civilized  and 
enslaved  nations,  have  made  against  civilized  ones, 
from  Marathon  downwards  !  Why  ?  Because  discipline 
is  more  powerful  than  numbers,  and  discipline  —  that 
is,  perfect  co-operation  —  is  an  attribute  of  civilization. 
To  come  to  our  own  times,  the  whole  history  of  the  Pen- 
insular War  bears  witness  to  the  incapacity  of  an  imper- 
fectly civilized  people  for  co-operation.  Amidst  all  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  Spanish  nation  struggling  against 
Napoleon,  no  one  leader,  military  or  political,  could  act 
in  concert  with  another  ;  no  one  would  sacrifice  one  iota 
of  his  consequence,  his  authority,  or  his  opinion,  to  the 
most  obvious  demands  of  the  common  cause  :  neither 
generals  nor  soldiers  could  observe  the  simplest  rules  of 
the  military  art.  If  there  be  an  interest  which  one 
might  expect  to  act  forcibly  upon  the  minds  even  of 
savages,  it  is  the  desire  of  simultaneously  crushing  a 
formidable  neijjhbor  whom  none  of  them  are  stronoj 
enough  to  resist  single-handed ;  yet  none  but  civilized 


CIVILIZATION.  193 

nations  have  ever  been  capable  of  forming  an  alliance. 
The  native  states  of  India  have  been  conquered  by 
the  English,  one  by  one ;  Turkey  made  peace  with 
Russia  in  the  very  moment  of  her  invasion  by  France  ; 
the  nations  of  the  world  never  could  form  a  confederacy 
against  the  Romans,  but  were  swallowed  up  in  succes- 
sion, some  of  them  being  always  ready  to  aid  in  the 
subjugation  of  the  rest.  Enterprises  requiring  the 
voluntary  co-operation  of  many  persons  independent  of 
one  another,  in  the  hands  of  all  but  highly  civilized 
nations,  have  always  failed. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  why  this  incapacity  of  organ- 
ized combination  characterizes  savages,  and  disappears 
with  the  growth  of  civilization.  ,  Co-operation,  like 
other  difficult  things,  can  be  learnt  only  by  practice  ; 
and,  to  be  capable  of  it  in  great  things,  a  people  must 
be  gradually  trained  to  it  in  small.  Now,  the  whole 
course  of  advancing  civilization  is  a  series  of  such  train- 
ing. The  laborer  in  a  rude  state  of  society  works 
singly ;  or,  if  several  are  brought  to  work  together  by 
the  will  of  a  master,  they  work  side  by  side,  but  not 
in  concert :  one  man  digs  his  piece  of  ground ;  another 
digs  a  similar  piece  of  ground  close  by  him.  In  the 
situation  of  an  ignorant  laborer,  tilling  even  his  own 
field  with  his  own  hands,  and  associating  with  no  one 
except  his  wife  and  his  children,  what  is  there  that  can 
teach  him  to  co-operate  ?  The  division  of  employments  ; 
the  accomplishment,  by  the  combined  labor  of  several, 
of  tasks  which  could  not  be  achieved  by  any  number  of 
persons  singly,  —  is  the  great  school  of  co-operation. 
What  a  lesson,  for  instance,  is  navigation,  as  soon  as  it 

VOL.  I.  13 


194  CIVILIZATION. 

passes  out  of  its  first  simple  stage  !  —  the  safety  of  all 
constantly  depending  upon  the  vigilant  performance,  by 
each,  of  the  part  peculiarly  allotted  to  him  in  the  com- 
mon task.  Military  operations,  when  not  wholly  undis- 
ciplined, are  a  similar  school ;  so  are  all  the  operations 
of  commerce  and  manufactures  which  require  the 
employment  of  many  hands  upon  the  same  thing  at 
the  same  time.  By  these  operations,  mankind  learn  the 
value  of  combination ;  they  see  how  much  and  with 
what  ease  it  accomplishes,  which  never  could  be  accom- 
plished without  it ;  they  learn  a  practical  lesson  of 
submitting  themselves  to  guidance,  and  subduing  them- 
selves to  act  as  interdependent  parts  of  a  complex  whole. 
A  people  thus  progressively  trained  to  combination  by 
the  business  of  their  lives  become  capable  of  carrying 
the  same  habits  into  new  things.  For  it  holds  univer- 
sally, that  the  one  only  mode  of  learning  to  do  any 
thing  is  actually  doing  something  of  the  same  kind 
under  easier  circumstances.  Habits  of  discipline,  once 
acquired,  qualify  human  beings  to  accomplish  all  other 
things  for  which  discipline  is  needed.  No  longer  either 
spurning  control,  or  incapable  of  seeing  its  advantages, 
whenever  any  object  presents  itself  which  can  be  attained 
by  co-operation,  and  which  they  see  or  believe  to  be 
beneficial,  they  are  ripe  for  attaining  it. 

The  characters,  then,  of  a  state  of  high  civilization 
being  the  diffusion  of  property  and  intelligence,  and  the 
power  of  co-operation,  the  next  thing  to  observe  is  the 
unexampled  development  which  all  these  elements  have 
assumed  of  late  years. 

The  rapidity  with  which  property  has  accumulated 
and    is    accumulating    in    the    principal    countries    of 


CrVTLIZATION.  195 

Europe,  but  especially  in  this  island,  is  obvious  to  every 
one.  The  capital  of  the  industrious  classes  overflows 
into  foreign  countries,  and  into  all  kinds  of  wild  specu- 
lations. The  amount  of  capital  annually  exported  from 
Great  Britain  alone,  surpasses,  probably,  the  whole 
wealth  of  the  most  flourishing  commercial  republics  of 
antiquity.  But  this  capital,  collectively  so  vast,  is 
mainly  composed  Qf  small  portions ;  very  generally  so 
small,  that  the  owners  cannot,  without  other  means  of 
livelihood,  subsist  on  the  profits  of  them.  While  such 
is  the  growth  of  property  in  the  hands  of  the  mass,  the 
circumstances  of  the  hio^her  classes  have  undergone 
nothing  like  a  corresponding  improvement.  Many 
large  fortunes  have,  it  is  true,  been  accumulated ;  but 
many  others  have  been  wholly  or  partially  dissipated : 
for  the  inheritors  of  immense  fortunes,  as  a  class, 
always  live  at  least  up  to  their  incomes  when  at  the 
highest ;  and  the  unavoidable  vicissitudes  of  those  in- 
comes are  always  sinking  them  deeper  and  deeper  into 
debt.  A  large  proportion  of  the  English  landlords,  as 
they  themselves  are  constantly  telling  us,  are  so  over- 
whelmed with  mortgages,  that  they  have  ceased  to  be 
the  real  owners  of  the  bulk  of  their  estates.  In  other 
countries,  the  large  properties  have  very  generally  been 
broken  down ;  in  France,  by  revolution,  and  the  revo- 
lutionary law  of  inheritance  ;  in  Prussia,  by  successive 
edicts  of  that  substantially  democratic  though  formally 
absolute  government. 

With  respect  to  knowledge  and  intelligence,  it  is  the 
truism  of  the  age,  that  the  masses,  both  of  the  middle 
and  even  of  the  working  classes,  are  treading  upon  the 
heels  of  their  superiors. 


196  CIVILIZATION. 

If  we  now  consider  the  progress  made  by  those  same 
masses  in  the  capacity  and  habit  of  co-operation,  we 
find  it  equally  surprising.  At  what  period  were  the 
operations  of  productive  industry  carried  on  upon  any 
thing  like  their  present  scale  ?  Were  so  many  hands 
ever  before  employed  at  the  same  time,  upon  the  same 
work,  as  now  in  all  the  principal  departments  of  manu- 
factures and  commerce  ?  To  how  enormous  an  extent 
is  business  now  carried  on  by  joint-stock  companies  !  — 
in  other  words,  by  many  small  capitals  thrown  together 
to  form  one  great  one.  The  country  is  covered  with 
associations.  There  are  societies  for  political,  societies 
for  religious,  societies  for  philanthropic  purposes.  But 
the  greatest  novelty  of  all  is  the  spirit  of  combination 
which  has  grown  up  among  the  working  classes.  The 
present  age  has  seen  the  commencement  of  benefit  soci- 
eties ;  and  they  now,  as  well  as  the  more  questionable 
Trades  Unions,  overspread  the  whole  country.  A  more 
powerful,  though  not  so  ostensible,  instrument  of  com- 
bination than  any  of  these,  has  but  lately  become  uni- 
versally accessible,  —  the  newspaper.  The  newspaper 
carries  home  the  voice  of  the  many  to  every  individual 
among  them  :  by  the  newspaper,  each  learns  that  others 
are  feeling  as  he  feels  ;  and  that,  if  he  is  ready,  he  will 
find  them  also  prepared  to  act  upon  what  they  feel. 
The  newspaper  is  the  telegraph  which  carries  the  signal 
throughout  the  country,  and  the  flag  round  which  it 
rallies.  Hundreds  of  newspapers  speaking  in  the  same 
voice  at  once,  and  the  rapidity  of  communication  aflPord- 
ed  by  improved  means  of  locomotion,  were  what  enabled 
the  whole  country  to  combine  in  that  simultaneous  ener- 
getic demonstration  of  determined  -will  which  carried 


dvnjZATiON.  197 

the  Eeform  Act.  Both  these  facilities  are  on  the 
increase,  every  one  may  see  how  rapidly ;  and  they  will 
enable  the  people  on  all  decisive  occasions  to  form  a 
collective  will,  and  render  that  collective  will  irre- 
sistible. 

To  meet  this  wonderful  development  of  physical  and 
mental  power  on  the  part  of  the  masses,  can  it  be  said 
that  there  has  been  any  corresponding  quantity  of  intel- 
lectual power  or  moral  energy  unfolded  among  those 
individuals  or  classes  who  have  enjoyed  superior  advan- 
tages ?  No  one,  we  think,  will  affirm  it.  There  is  a 
great  increase  of  humanity,  a  decline  of  bigotry,  as 
well  as  of  arrogance  and  the  conceit  of  caste,  among 
our  conspicuous  classes  ;  but  there  is,  to  say  the  least, 
no  increase  of  shining  ability,  and  a  very  marked 
decrease  of  vigor  and  energy.  With  all  the  advantages 
of  this  age,  its  facilities  for  mental  cultivation,  the 
incitements  and  the  rewards  which  it  holds  out  to  ex- 
alted talents,  there  can  scarcely  be  pointed  out  in  the 
European  annals  any  stirring  times  which  have  brought 
so  little  that  is  distinguished,  either  morally  or  intel- 
lectually, to  the  surface. 

That  this,  too,  is  no  more  than  was  to  be  expected 
from  the  tendencies  of  civilization,  when  no  attempt  is 
made  to  correct  them,  we  shall  have  occasion  to  show 
presently.  But,  even  if  civilization  did  nothing  to 
lower  the  eminences,  it  would  produce  an  exactly  simi- 
lar effect  by  raising  the  plains.  When  the  masses 
become  powerful,  an  individual,  or  a  small  band  of 
individuals,  can  accomplish  nothing  considerable  except 
by  influencing  the  masses ;  and  to  do  this  becomes 
daily   more    difficult,    from   the    constantly   increasing 


198  CIVrLIZATTON. 

number  of  those  who  are  vying  with  one  another  to 
attract  the  public  attention.  Our  position,  therefore, 
is  established,  that,  by  the  natural  growth  of  civiliza- 
tion, power  passes  from  individuals  to  masses,  and  the 
weight  and  importance  of  an  individual,  as  compared 
with  the  mass,  sink  into  greater  and  greater  insignifi- 
cance. 

The  change  which  is  thus  in  progress,  and  to  a  great 
extent  consummated,  is  the  greatest  ever  recorded  in 
social  affairs ;  the  most  complete,  the  most  fruitful  in 
consequences,  and  the  most  irrevocable.  Whoever  can 
meditate  on  it,  and  not  see  that  so  great  a  revolution 
vitiates  all  existing  rules  of  government  and  policy,  and 
renders  all  practice  and  all  predictions  grounded  only 
on  prior  experience  worthless,  is  wanting  in  the  very 
first  and  most  elementary  principle  of  statesmanship  in 
these  times. 

"  II  faut,"  as  M.  de  Tocqueville  has  said,  "  une 
science  politique  nouvelle  a  un  monde  tout  nouveau." 
The  whole  face  of  society  is  reversed ;  all  the  natural 
elements  of  power  have  definitively  changed  places ; 
and  there  are  people  who  talk  of  standing  up  for  ancient 
institutions,  and  the  duty  of  sticking  to  the  British 
Constitution  settled  in  1688  !  What  is  still  more  ex- 
traordinary, these  are*  the  people  who  accuse  others  of 
disregarding  variety  of  circumstances,  and  imposing 
their  abstract  theories  upon  all  states  of  society  without 
discrimination . 

We  put  it  to  those  who  call  themselves  conservatives, 
whether,  when  the  chief  power  in  society  is  passing  into 
the  hands  of  the  masses,  they  really  think  it  possible  to 


CIVILIZATION.  199 

preveuit  the  masses  from  making  that  power  predomi- 
nant as  well  in  the  government  as  elsewhere.  The 
triumph  of  democracy,  or,  in  other  words,  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  public  opinion,  does  not  depend  upon  the 
opinion  of  any  individual,  or  set  of  individuals,"  that  it 
ought  to  triumph,  but  upon  the  natural  laws  of  the 
progress  of  wealth,  upon  the  diffusion  of  reading,  and 
the  increase  of  the  facilities  of  human  intercourse.  If 
Lord  Kenyon  or  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  could  stop 
these,  they  might  accomplish  something.  There  is  no 
danger  of  the  prevalence  of  democracy  in  Syria  or 
Timbuctoo.  But  he  must  be  a  poor  politician  who 
does  not  know,  that  whatever  is  the  growing  power 
in  society  will  force  its  way  into  the  government  by 
fair  means  or  foul.  The  distribution  of  constitutional 
power  cannot  long  continue  very  different  from  that  of 
real  power,  without  a  convulsion  ;  nor,  if  the  institutions 
which  impede  the  progress  of  democracy  could  be  by 
any  miracle  preserved,  could  even  they  do  more  than 
render  that  progress  a  little  slower.  Were  the  consti- 
tution of  Great  Britain  to  remain  henceforth  unaltered, 
we  are  not  the  less  under  the  dominion,  becoming  every 
day  more  irresistible,  of  public  opinion. 

With  regard  to  the  advance  of  democracy,  there  are 
two  different  positions  which  it  is  possible  for  a  rational 
person  to  take  up,  according  as  he  thinks  the  masses 
prepared  or  unprepared  to  exercise  the  control  which 
they  are  acquiring  over  their  destiny,  in  a  manner 
which  would  be  an  improvement  upon  what  now  exists. 
If  he  thinks  them  prepared,  he  will  aid  the  democratic 
movement ;  or,  if  he  deem  it  to  be  proceeding  fast 
enough  without  him,  he  will  at  all  events  refrain  from 


200  CIVILIZATION. 

resisting  it.  If,  on  the  contrary,  he  thinks  the  masses 
unprepared  for  complete  control  over  their  government, 
—  seeing  at  the  same  time,  that,  prepared  or  not,  they 
cannot  long  be  prevented  from  acquiring  it, — he  will 
exert  his  utmost  efforts  in  contributing  to  prepare  them  : 
using  all  means,  on  the  one  hand,  for  making  the 
masses  themselves  wiser  and  better ;  on  the  other,  for 
so  rousing  the  slumbering  energy  of  the  opulent  and 
lettered  classes,  so  storing  the  youth  of  those  classes 
with  the  profoundest  and  most  valuable  knowledge,  so 
calling  forth  whatever  of  individual  greatness  exists  or 
can  be  raised  up  in  the  country,  as  to  create  a  power 
which  might  partially  rival  the  mere  power  of  the 
masses,  and  might  exercise  the  most  salutary  influence 
over  them  for  their  own  good.  When  engaged  earnestly 
in  works  like  these,  one  can  understand  how  a  rational 
person  might  think,  that,  in  order  to  give  more  time  for 
the  performance  of  them,  it  were  well  if  the  current  of 
democracy,  which  can  in  no  sort  be  stayed,  could  be 
prevailed  upon,  for  a  time,  to  flow  less  impetuously. 
With  conservatives  of  this  sort,  all  democrats  of  cor- 
responding enlargement  of  aims  could  fraternize  as 
frankly  and  cordially. as  with  most  of  their  own  friends  ; 
and  we.  speak  from  an  extensive  knowledge  of  the 
wisest  and  most  high-minded  of  that  body,  when  we 
take  upon  ourselves  to  answer  for  them,  that  they 
would  never  push  forward  their  own  political  projects 
in  a  spirit  or  with  a  violence  which  could  tend  to  frus- 
trate any  rational  endeavors  towards  the  object  nearest 
their  hearts,  —  the  instruction  of  the  understandings, 
and  the  elevation  of  the  characters,  of  all  classes  of  their 
countrymen. 


CIVrLIZATION.  201 

But  who  is  there,  among  the  political  party  calling 
themselves  conservatives,  that  professes  to  have  any 
such  object  in  view?  Do  they  seek  to  employ  the 
interval  of  respite,  which  they  might  hope  to  gain  by 
withstanding  democracy,  in  qualifying  the  people  to 
wield  the  democracy  more  wisely  when  it  comes? 
Would  they  not  far  rather  resist  any  such  endeavor,  on 
the  principle  that  knowledge  is  power,  and  that  its 
further  diffusion  would  make  the  dreaded  evU  come 
sooner?  Do  the  leading  conservatives  in  either  house 
of  Parliament  feel  that  the  character  of  the  higher 
classes  needs  renovating,  to  qualify  them  for  a  more 
arduous  task  and  a  keener  strife  than  has  yet  fallen  to 
their  lot?  Is  not  the  character  of  a  Tory  lord  or 
country  gentleman,  or  a  Church-of-England  parson, 
perfectly  satisfactory  to  them  ?  Is  not  the  existing  con- 
stitution of  the  two  universities,  —  those  bodies  whose 
especial  duty  it  was  to  counteract  the  debilitating  influ- 
ence of  the  circumstances  of  the  age  upon  individual 
character,  and  to  send  forth  into  society  a  succession  of 
minds,  not  the  creatures  of  their  age,  but  capable  of 
being  its  improvers  and  regenerators,  —  the  universities, 
by  whom  this,  their  especial  duty,  has  been  basely  neg- 
lected, until,  as  is  usual  with  all  neglected  duties,  the 
very  consciousness  of  it  as  a  duty  has  faded  from  their 
remembrance,  —  is  not,  we  say,  the  existing  constitu- 
tion, and  the  whole  existing  system  of  these  universities, 
down  to  the  smallest  of  their  abuses, — the  exclusion 
of  Dissenters,  —  a  thing  for  which  every  Tory,  though 
he  may  not,  as  he  pretends,  die  in  the  last  ditch,  will  at 
least  vote  in  the  last  division  ?  The  Church,  professedly 
the  other  great  instrument  of  national  culture,  long 


202  CIVILIZATION. 

since  perverted  (we  speak  of  rules,  not  exceptions) 
into  a  grand  instrument  for  discouraging  all  culture 
incoilsistent  with  blind  obedience  to  established  maxims 
and  constituted  authorities, — what  Tory  has  a  scheme 
in  view  for  any  changes  in  this  body,  but  such  as  may 
pacify  assailants,  and  make  the  institution  wear  a  less 
disgusting  appearance  to  the  eye?  What  political 
Tory  will  not  resist  to  the  very  last  moment  any  altera- 
tion in  that  Church,  which  would  prevent  its  livings 
from  being  the  provision  for  a  family,  its  dignities  the 
reward  of  political  or  of  private  services?  The  Tories, 
those  at  least  connected  with  Parliament  or  office,  do 
not  aim  at  having  good  institutions,  or  even  at  preserv- 
ing the  present  ones  :  their  object  is  to  profit  by  them 
while  they  exist. 

We  scruple  not  to  express  our  belief,  that  a  truer 
spirit  of  conservation,  as  to  every  thing  good  in  the 
principles  and  professed  objects  of  our  old  institutions, 
lives  in  many  who  are  determined  enemies  of  those 
institutions  in  their  present  state,  than  in  most  of 
those  who  call  themselves  conservatives.  But  there  are 
many  well-meaning  people  who  always  confound  at- 
tachment to  an  end  with  pertinacious  adherence  to  any 
set  of  means  by  which  it  either  is,  or  is  pretended  to 
be,  already  pursued ;  and  have  yet  to  learn,  that  bodies 
of  men  who  live  in  honor  and  importance  upon  the 
pretence  of  fulfilling  ends  which  they  never  honestly 
seek  are  the  great  hinderance  to  the  attainment  of  those 
ends,  and  that  whoever  has  the  attainment  really  at 
heart  must  expect  a  war  of  extermination  with  all  such 
confederacies. 


CIVILIZATIOX.  203 

Thus  far  as  to  the  political  effects  of  civilization. 
Its  moral  effects,  which  as  yet  we  have  only  glanced  at, 
demand  further  elucidation.  They  may  be  considered 
under  two  heads,  —  the  direct  influence  of  civilization 
itself  upon  individual  character,  and  the  moral  effects 
produced  by  the  insignificance  into  which  the  individual 
falls  in  comparison  with  the  masses. 

One  of  the  effects  of  a  high  state  of  civilization  upon 
character  is  a  relaxation  of  individual  energv,  or  rather 
the  concentration  of  it  within  the  narrow  sphere  of  the 
individual's  money-getting  pursuits.  As  civilization 
advances,  every  person  becomes  dependent  for  more 
and  more  of  what  most  nearly  concerns  him,  not  upon 
his  own  exertions,  but  upon  the  general  arrangements 
of  society.  In  a  rude  state,  each  man's  personal  secu- 
rity, the  protection  of  his  family,  his  property,  his 
liberty  itself,  depend  greatly  upon  his  bodily  strength 
and  his  mental  energy  or  cunning :  in  a  civilized  state, 
all  this  is  secured  to  him  by  causes  extrinsic  to  himself. 
The  growing  mildness  of  manners  is  a  protection  to 
him  against  much  that  he  was  before  exposed  to  ;  while, 
for  the  remainder,  he  may  rely  with  constantly  increas- 
ing assurance  upon  the  soldier,  the  policeman,  and  the 
judge,  and  (where  the  efficiency  or  purity  of  those 
instruments,  as  is  usually  the  case,  lags  behind  the 
general  march  of  civilization)  upon  the  advancing 
strength  of  public  opinion.  There  remain,  as  induce- 
ments to  call  forth  energy  of  character,  the  desire 
of  wealth  or  of  personal  aggrandizement,  the  passion  of 
philanthropy,  and  the  love  of  active  virtue.  But  the 
objects  to  which  these  various  feelings  point  are  matters 
of  choice,  not  of  necessity  ;  nor  do  the  feelings  act  with 


204  CIVILIZATION. 

any  thing  like  equal  force  upon  all  minds.  The  only 
one  of  them  which  can  be  considered  as  any  thing  like 
universal  is  the  desire  of  wealth ;  and  wealth  beinsr, 
in  the  case  of  the  majority,  the  most  accessible  means 
of  gratifying  all  their  other  desires,  nearly  the  whole  of 
the  energy  of  character  which  exists  in  highly  civilized 
societies  concentrates  itself  on  the  pursuit  of  that  object. 
In  the  case,  however,  of  the  most  influential  classes,  — 
those  whose  energies,  if  they  had  them,  might  be  exer- 
cised on  the  greatest  scale  and  with  the  most  consider- 
able result,  —  the  desire  of  wealth  is  already  sufficiently 
satisfied  to  render  them  averse  to  suffer  pain  or  incur 
much  voluntary  labor  for  the  sake  of  any  further  in- 
crease. The  same  classes  also  enjoy,  from  their  station 
alone,  a  high  degree  of  personal  consideration.  Except 
the  high  offices  of  the  state,  there  is  hardly  any  thing 
to  tempt  the  ambition  of  men  in  their  circumstances. 
Those  offices,  when  a  great  nobleman  could  have  them 
for  asking  for,  and  keep  them  with  less  trouble  than  he 
could  manage  his  private  estate,  were,  no  doubt,  desira- 
ble enough  possessions  for  such  persons  ;  but  when  they 
become  posts  of  labor,  vexation,  and  anxiety,  and, 
besides,  cannot  be  had  without  paying  the  price  of  some 
previous  toil,  experience  shows,  that,  among  men  un- 
accustomed to  sacrifice  their  amusements  and  their  ease, 
the  number  upon  whom  these  high  offices  operate  as 
incentives  to  activity,  or  in  whom  they  call  forth  any 
vigor  of  character,  is  extremely  limited.  Thus  it  hap- 
pens, that  in  highly  civilized  countries,  and  particularly 
among  ourselves,  the  energies  of  the  middle  classes  are 
almost  confined  to  money-getting,  and  those  of  the 
higher  classes  are  nearly  extinct. 


CIVILIZATION.  205 

There  is  another  circumstance  to  which  we  may  trace 
much  both  of  the  good  and  of  the  bad  quahties  wliich 
distinguish  our  civiHzation  from  the  rudeness  of  former 
times.  One  of  the  effects  of  civilization  (not  to  say 
one  of  the  ingredients  in  it)  is,  that  the  spectacle,  and 
even  the  very  idea,  of  pain,  is  kept  more  and  more  out 
of  the  sight  of  those  classes  who  enjoy  in  their  fulness 
the  benefits  of  civilization.  The  state  of  perpetual 
personal  conflict,  rendered  necessary  by  the  circum- 
stances of  former  times,  and  from  which  it  was  hardly 
possible  for  any  person,  in  whatever  rank  of  society, 
to  be  exempt,  necessarily  habituated  every  one  to  the 
spectacle  of  harshness,  rudeness,  and  violence,  to  the 
struggle  of  one  indomitable  will  against  another,  and 
to  the  alternate  suffering  and  infliction  of  pain.  These 
things,  consequently,  were  not  as  revolting  even  to  the 
best  and  most  actively  benevolent  men  of  former  days 
as  they  are  to  our  own  ;  and  we  find  the  recorded  con- 
duct of  those  men  frequently  such  as  would  be  univer- 
sally considered  very  unfeeling  in  a  person  of  our  own 
day.  They,  however,  thought  less  of  the  infliction  of 
pain,  because  they  thought  less  of  pain  altogether. 
When  we  read  of  actions  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
or  of  our  own  ancestors,  denoting  callousness  to  human 
suffering,  we  must  not  think  that  those  who  committed 
these  actions  were  as  cruel  as  we  must  become  before 
we  could  do  the  like.  The  pain  which  they  inflicted 
they  were  in  the  habit  of  voluntarily  undergoing  from 
slight  causes :  it  did  not  appear  to  them  as  great  an 
evil  as  it  appears,  and  as  it  really  is,  to  us  ;  nor  did  it  in 
any  way  degrade  their  minds.  In  our  own  time,  the 
necessity  of  personal  collision  between  one  person  and 


206  CIVILIZATION. 

another  is,  comparatively  speaking,  almost  at  an  end. 
All  those  necessary  portions  of  the  business  of  society 
which  oblige  any  person  to  be  the  immediate  agent  or 
ocular  witness  of  the  infliction  of  pain  are  delegated 
by  common  consent  to  peculiar  and  narrow  classes, — 
to  the  judge,  the  soldier,  the  surgeon,  the  butcher,  and 
the  executioner.  To  most  people  in  easy  circumstances, 
any  pain,  except  that  inflicted  upon  the  body  by  acci- 
dent or  disease,  and  upon  the  mind  by  the  inevitable 
sorrows  of  life,  is  rather  a  thing  known  of  than  actually 
experienced.  This  is  much  more  emphatically  true  in 
the  more  refined  classes,  and  as  refinement  advances ; 
for  it  is  in  avoiding  the  presence,  not  only  of  actual  pain, 
but  of  whatever  suggests  oflTensive  or  disagreeable  ideas, 
that  a  great  part  of  refinement  consists.  We  may 
remark,  too,  that  this  is  possible  only  by  a  perfectioii 
of  mechanical  arrangements  impracticable  in  any  but  a 
high  state  of  civilization.  Now,  most  kinds  of  pain 
and  annoyance  appear  much  more  unendurable  to  those 
who  have  little  experience  of  them  than  to  those  who 
have  much.  The  consequence  is,  that,  compared  with 
former  times,  there  is  in  the  more  opulent  classes  of 
modem  civilized  communities  much  more  of  the  amiable 
and  humane,  and  much  less  of  the  heroic.  The  heroic 
essentially  consists  in  being  ready,  for  a  worthy  object, 
to  do  and  to  suffer,  but  especially  to  do,  what  is  painful 
or  disagreeable ;  and  whoever  does  not  early  learn  to 
be  capable  of  this  will  never  be  a  great  character. 
There  has  crept  over  the  refined  classes,  over  the  whole 
class  of  gentlemen  in  England,  a  moral  effeminacy,  an 
inaptitude  for  every  kind  of  struggle.  They  shrink 
from  all  effort,  from  every  thing  which  is  troublesome 


civiLiZATio^r.  207 

and  clisagreeable.  The  same  causes  which  render  them 
sluggish  and  unenterprising,  make  them,  it  is  true,  for 
the  most  part,  stoical  under  inevitable  evils.  But 
heroism  is  an  active,  not  a  passive  quality  ;  and  when  it 
is  necessary  not  to  bear  pain,  but  to  seek  it,  Jittle  needs 
be  expected  from  the  men  of  the  present  day.  They 
cannot  undergo  labor,  they  cannot  brook  ridicule,  they 
cannot  brave  evil  tongues  :  they  have  not  hardihood 
to  say  an  unpleasant  thing  to  any  one  whom  they  are 
in  the  habit  of  seeing,  or  to  face,  even  with  a  nation  at 
their  back,  the  coldness  of  some  little  coterie  which 
surrounds  them.  This  torpidity  and  cowardice,  as  a 
general  characteristic,  is  new  in  the  world  j  but  (modi- 
fied by  the  different  temperaments  of  different  nations) 
it  is  a  natural  consequence  of  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  will  continue  until  met  by  a  system  of  culti- 
vation adapted  to  counteract  it. 

If  the  source  of  great  virtues  thus  dries  up,  great 
vices  are  placed,  no  doubt,  under  considerable  re- 
straint. The  regime  of  public  opinion  is  adverse  to 
at  least  the  indecorous  vices ;  and  as  that  restraining 
power  gains  strength,  and  certain  classes  or  individuals 
cease  to  possess  a  virtual  exemption  from  it,  the  change 
is  highly  favorable  to  the  outward  decencies  of  life. 
Xor  cd:n  it  be  denied,  that  the  diffusion  of  even  such 
knowledge  as  civilization  naturally  brings  has  no  slight 
tendency  to  rectify,  though  it  be  but  partially,  the 
standard  of  public  opinion ;  to  undermine  many  of 
those  prejudices  and  superstitions  which  made  mankind 
hate  each  other  for  things  not  really  odious ;  to  make 
them  take  a  juster  measure  of  the  tendencies  of  actions, 
and  weigh  more  correctly  the  evidence  on  which  they 


208  CIVILIZATION. 

condemn  or  applaud  their  fellow-creatures  ;  to  make,  in 
short,  their  approbation  direct  itself  more  correctly  to 
good  actions,  and  their  disapprobation  to  bad.  What 
are  the  limits  to  this  natural  improvement  in  public 
opinion,  when  there  is  no  other  sort  of  cultivation  going 
on  than  that  which  is  the  accompaniment  of  civilization, 
we  need  not  at  present  inquire.  It  is  enough  that 
within  those  limits  there  is  an  extensive  range ;  that  as 
much  improvement  in  the  general  understanding,  soft- 
ening of  the  feelings,  and  decay  of  pernicious  errors,  as 
naturally  attends  the  progress  of  wealth  and  the  spread 
of  reading,  suffices  to  render  the  judgment  of  the  public 
upon  actions  and  persons,  so  far  as  evidence  is  before 
them,  much  more  discriminating  and  correct. 

But  here  presents  itself  another  ramification  of  the 
effects  of  civilization,  which  it  has  often  surprised  us  to 
find  so  little  attended  to.  The  individual  becomes  so 
lost  in  the  crowd,  that,  though  he  depends  more  and 
more  upon  opinion,  he  is  apt  to  depend  less  and  less 
upon  well-grounded  opinion, — upon  the  opinion  of  those 
who  know  him.  An  established  character  becomes  at 
once  more  difficult  to  gain,  and  more  easily  to  be  dis- 
pensed with. 

It  is  in  a  small  society,  where  everybody  knows  every- 
body, that  public  opinion,  so  far  as  well  directed,  exer- 
cises its  most  salutary  influence.  Take  the  case  of  a 
tradesman  in  a  small  country  tOAvn.  To  every  one  of 
liis  customers  he  is  long  and  accurately  known :  their 
opinion  of  him  has  been  formed  after  repeated  trials : 
if  he  could  deceive  them  once,  he  cannot  hope  to  go  on 
deceiving  them,  in  the  quaHty  of  his  goods  :  he  has  no 
other  customers  to  look  for  if  he  loses  these ;  while,  if 


CIVILIZATION.  209 

his  goods  are  really  what  they  profess  to  be,  he  may 
hope,  among  so  few  competitors,  that  this  also  will  be 
known  and  recognized,  and  that  he  will  acquire  the 
character,  individually  and  professionally,  which  his 
conduct  entitles  him  to.  Far  different  is  the  case  of  a 
man  setting  up  in  business  in  the  crowded  streets  of 
a  great  city.  If  he  trust  solely  to  the  quality  of  his 
goods,  to  the  honesty  and  faithfulness  with  which  he 
performs  what  he  undertakes,  he  may  remain  ten  years 
without  a  customer:  be  he  ever  so  honest,  he  is  driven  to 
cry  out  on  the  housetops  that  his  wares  are  the  best  of 
wares,  past,  present,  and  to  come  ;  whUe  if  he  pi'oclaim 
this,  however  false,  with  sufficient  loudness  to  excite  the 
curiosity  of  passers-by,  and  can  give  his  commodities 
"a  gloss,  a  salable  look,"  not  easily  to  be  seen  through  at 
a  superficial  glance,  he  may  drive  a  thriving  trade,  though 
no  customer  ever  enter  his  shop  twice.  There  has  been 
much  complaint  of  late  years  of  the  growth,  both  in  the 
world  of  trade  and  in  that  of  intellect,  of  quackery,  and 
especially  of  puffing :  but  nobody  seems  to  have  remarked 
that  these  are  the  inevitable  fruits  of  immense  competi- 
tion ;  of  a  state  of  society,  where  any  voice,  not  pitched 
in  an  exaggerated  key,  is  lost  in  the  hubbub.  Success,  in 
so  crowded  a  field,  depends,  not  upon  what  a  person  is, 
but  upon  what  he  seems  :  mere  marketable  qualities  be- 
come the  object  instead  of  substantial  ones,  and  a  man's 
labor  and  capital  are  expended  less  in  doing  any  thing 
than  in  persuading  other  people  that  he  has  done  it. 

Our  own  ao;e  has  seen  this  evil  broun^ht  to  its  consum- 
es o 

mation.  Quackery  there  always  was  ;  but  it  once  was 
a  test  of  the  absence  of  sterling  qualities  :  there  was  a 
proverb,  that  good  wine  needed  no  bush.      It  is  our 

VOL.  I.  14 


210  CIVILIZATION. 

own  age  which  has  seen  the  honest  dealer  driven  to 
quackery  by  hard  necessity,  and  the  certainty  of  being 
undersold  by  the  dishonest.  For  the  first  time,  arts  for 
attracting  public  attention  form  a  necessary  part  of  the 
qualifications  even  of  the  deserving ;  and  skill  in  these 
goes  farther  than  any  other  quality  towards  insuring 
success.  The  same  intensity  of  competition  drives  the 
trading  public  more  and  more  to  play  high  for  success  ; 
to  throw  for  all  or  nothing ;  and  this,  together  with  the 
difficulty  of  sure  calculations  in  a  field  of  commerce  so 
widely  extended,  renders  bankruptcy  no  longer  dis- 
graceful, because  no  longer  an  almost  certain  presump- 
tion either  of  dishonesty  or  imprudence :  the  discredit 
which  it  still  incurs  belongs  to  it,  alas  !  mainly  as  an 
indication  of  poverty.  Thus  public  opinion  loses  another 
of  those  simple  criteria  of  desert,  which,  and  which 
alone,  it  is  capable  of  correctly  applying ;  and  the  very 
cause,  which  has  rendered  it  omnipotent  in  the  gross, 
weakens  the  precision  and  force  with  which  its  judgment 
is  brought  home  to  individuals. 

It  is  not  solely  on  the  private  virtues  that  this  grow- 
ing Insignificance  of  the  individual  in  the  mass  is  pro- 
ductive of  mischief.  It  corrupts  the  very  fountain  of 
the  improvement  of  public  opinion  itself;  it  corrupts 
public  teaching ;  it  weakens  the  influence  of  the  more 
cultivated  few  over  the  many.  Literature  has  suiFered 
more  than  any  other  human  production  by  the  common 
disease.  When  there  were  few  books,  and  when  few 
read  at  all  save  those  who  had  been  accustomed  to  read 
the  best  authors,  books  were  written  with  the  well- 
grounded  expectation  that  they  would  be  read  carefully, 
and,  If  they  deserved  it,  would  be  read  often.     A  book 


CIVILIZATION.  211 

of  sterling  merit,  when  it  came  out,  was  sure  to  be  heard 
of,  and  might  hope  to  be  read,  by  the  whole  reading 
class  :  it  might  succeed  by  its  real  excellences,  though 
not  got  up  to  strike  at  once ;   and,  even  if  so  got  up, 
unless  it  had  the  support  of  genuine  merit,  it  fell  into 
oblivion.     The  rewards  were  then  for  him  who  wrote 
well,  not  much  ,'  for  the  laborious  and  learned,  not  the 
crude  and  ill-informed  writer.      But  now  the  case  is 
reversed.     "  This  is  a  reading  age ;  and,  precisely  be- 
cause it  is  so  reading  an  age,  any  book  which  is  the 
result  of  profound  meditation  is  perhaps  less  likely  to 
be  duly  and  profitably  read  than  at  a  former  period. 
The  world  reads  too  much  and  too  quickly  to  read  well. 
When  books  were  few,  to  get  thrqugh  one  was  a  work 
of  time  and  labor  :  what  was  written  with  thought  was 
read  with  thought,  and  with  a  desire  to  extract  from  it 
as  much  of  the  materials  of  knowledge  as  possible. 
But  when  almost  every  person  who  can  spell,  can  and 
Avill  write,  what  is  to  be  done  ?     It  is  difficult  to  know 
what  to  read,  except  by  reading  every  thing;  and  so 
much  of  the  world's  business  is  now  transacted  through 
the  press,  that  it  is  necessary  to  know  what  is  printed, 
if  we  desire  to  know  what   is    going   on.      Opinion 
weighs  with  so  vast  a  weight  in  the  balance  of  events, 
that  ideas  of  no  value  in  themselves  are  of  importance 
from  the  mere  circumstance  that  they  are  ideas,  and 
have  a  hond-jide  existence  as  such  anywhere  out  of 
Bedlam.     The  world,  in  consequence,  gorges  itself  with 
intellectual  food ;    and,  in  order  to  swallow  the  more, 
bolts  it.     Nothing  is  now  read  slowly,  or  twice  over. 
Books  are  run  through  with  no  less  rapidity,  and  scarcely 
leave  a  more  durable  impression,  than  a  newspaper- 


212  CIVILIZATION . 

article.  It  is  from  tliis,  among  other  causes,  that  so 
few  books  are  produced  of  any  value.  The  lioness  in 
the  fable  boasted,  that,  though  she  produced  only  one 
at  a  birth,  that  one  was  a  lion  ;  but  if  each  lion  only 
counted  for  one,  and  each  leveret  for  one,  the  advantage 
would  all  be  on  the  side  of  the  hare.  When  every  unit 
is  individually  weak,  it  is  only  multitude  that  tells. 
What  wonder  that  the  newspapers  should  carry  all 
before  them  ?  A  book  produces  hardly  a  greater  effect 
than  an  article,  and  there  can  be  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  of  these  in  one  year.  He,  therefore,  who 
should  and  would  write  a  book,  and  write  it  in  the 
proper  manner  of  writing  a  book,  now  dashes  down  his 
first  hasty  thoughts,  or  what  he  mistakes  for  thoughts, 
in  a  periodical.  And  the  public  is  in  the  predicament 
of  an  indolent  man,  who  cannot  bring  himself  to  apply 
liis  mind  vigorously  to  his  own  affairs,  and  over  whom, 
therefore,  not  he  who  speaks  most  wisely,  but  he  who 
speaks  most  fi-equently,  obtains  the  influence."  * 

Hence  we  see  that  literature  is  becoming  more  and 
more  ephemeral :  books,  of  any  solidity,  are  almost 
gone  by ;  even  reviews  are  not  now  considered  suffi- 
ciently light :  the  attention  cannot  sustain  itself  on  any 
serious  subject,  even  for  the  space  of  a  review-article. 
In  the  more  attractive  kinds  of  literature,  novels  and 
magazines,  though  the  demand  has  so  greatly  increased, 
the  supply  has  so  outstripped  it,  that  even  a  novel  is 
seldom  a  lucrative  speculation.  It  is  only  under  cir- 
cumstances of  rare  attraction  that  a  bookseller  will  now 
give  any  thing  to  an  author  for  copyright.  As  the 
difficulties   of  success   thus  progressively  increase,   all 

*  From  a  paper  by  the  author,  not  included  in  the  present  collection. 


CIVILIZATION.  213 

other  ends  are  more  and  more  sacrificed  for  the  attain- 
ment of  it :  literature  becomes  more  and  more  a  mere 
reflection  of  the  cuirent  sentiments,  and  has  almost 
entirely  abandoned  its  mission  as  an  enlightener  and 
improver  of  them. 

There  are  now  in  this  country,  we  may  say,  but  two 
modes  left  in  which  an  individual  mind  can  hope  to 
produce  much  direct  effect  upon  the  minds  and  destinies 
of  his  countrymen  generally,  —  as  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, or  an  editor  of  a  London  newspaper.  In  both 
these  capacities,  much  may  still  be  done  by  an  indi- 
vidual; because,  while  the  power  of  the  collective  body 
is  very  great,  the  number  of  participants  in  it  does  not 
admit  of  much  increase.  One  of  these  monopolies 
will  be  opened  to  competition  when  the  newspaper 
stamp  is  taken  off;  whereby  the  importance  of  the 
newspaper-press  in  the  aggregate,  considered  as  the  voice 
of  public  opinion,  will  be  increased,  and  the  influence  of 
any  one  writer  in  helping  to  form  that  opinion  neces- 
sarily diminished.  This  we  might  regret,  did  we  not 
remember  to  what  ends  that  influence  is  now  used,  and 
is  sure  to  be  so  while  newspapers  are  a  mere  investment 
of  capital  for  the  sake  of  mercantile  profit. 

Is  there,  then,  no  remedy?  Are  the  decay  of  in- 
dividual energy,  the  weakening  of  the  influence  of 
superior  minds  over  the  multitude,  the  growth  of  char- 
latanerie,  and  the  diminished  efficacy  of  public  opinion 
as  a  restraining  power,  —  are  these  the  price  we  neces- 
sarily pay  for  the  benefits  of  civilization  ?  and  can  they 
only  be  avoided  by  checking  the  diffusion  of  knowledge, 
discouraging  the  spirit  of  combination,  prohibiting  im- 


214  CmiLIZATION. 

provements  in  the  arts  of  life,  and  repressing  the  further 
increase  of  wealth  and  of  production  ?  Assuredly  not. 
Those  advantages  which  civilization  cannot  give  — 
which  in  its  uncorrected  influence  it  has  even  a  tendency 
to  destroy  —  may  yet  co-exist  with  civilization ;  and  it 
is  only  when  joined  to  civiHzation  that  they  can  produce 
their  fairest  fruits.  All  that  we  are  in  danger  of  losing 
we  may  preserve,  all  that  we  have  lost  we  may  regain, 
and  bring  to  a  perfection  hitherto  unknown ;  but  not 
by  slumbering,  and  leaving  things  to  themselves,  no 
more  than  by  ridiculously  trying  our  strength  against 
their  irresistible  tendencies  :  only  by  establishing  coun- 
ter-tendencies, which  may  combine  with  those  tenden- 
cies, and  modify  them. 

The  evils  are,  that  the  individual  is  lost  and  becomes 
impotent  in  the  crowd,  and  that  individual  character 
itself  becomes  relaxed  and  enervated.  For  the  first 
evil,  the  remedy  is,  gi*eater  and  more  perfect  combina- 
tion among  individuals ;  for  the  second,  national  insti- 
tutions of  education,  and  forms  of  polity  calculated  to 
invigorate  the  individual  character. 

The  former  of  these  desiderata,  as  its  attainment 
depends  upon  a  change  in  the  habits  of  society  itself, 
can  only  be  realized  by  degrees,  as  the  necessity  be- 
comes felt ;  but  circumstances  are  even  now,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  forcing  it  on.  In  Great  Britain  especially 
(which  so  far  surpasses  the  rest  of  the  Old  World  in  the 
extent  and  rapidity  of  the  accumulation  of  wealth), 
the  fall  of  profits,  consequent  upon  the  vast  increase 
of  population  and  capital,  is  rapidly  extinguishing  the 
class  of  small  dealers  and  small  producers,  from  the  im- 
possibility of  living  on  their  diminished  profits ;  and  is 


CIVILIZATION.  215 

throwing  business  of  all  kinds  more  and  more  into  the 
hands  of  large  capitalists,  whether  these  be  rich  indi- 
dividuals,  or  joint-stock  companies  formed  by  the  ag- 
gregation of  many  small  capitals.  We  are  not  among 
those  who  beHeve  that  this  progress  is  tending  to  the 
complete  extinction  of  competition,  or  that  the  entire 
productive  resources  of  the  country  will,  within  any 
assignable  number  of  ages,  if  ever,  be  administered  by, 
and  for  the  benefit  of,  a  general  association  of  the  whole 
community.  But  we  believe  that  the  multiplication 
of  competitors  in  all  branches  of  business  and  in  all 
professions  —  which  renders  it  more  and  more  difficult 
to  obtain  success  by  merit  alone,  more  and  more  easy  to 
obtain  it  by  plausible  pretence  —  will  find  a  limiting 
principle  in  the  progress  of  the  spirit  of  co-operation ; 
that,  in  every  over-crowded  department,  there  will  arise 
a  tendency  among  individuals  so  to  unite  their  labor  or 
their  capital,  that  the  purchaser  or  employer  will  have 
to  choose,  not  among  innumerable  individuals,  but 
among  a  few  groups.  Competition  will  be  as  active  as 
ever ;  but  the  number  of  competitors  will  be  brought 
within  manageable  bounds. 

Such  a  spirit  of  co-operation  is  most  of  all  wanted 
among  the  intellectual  classes  and  professions.  The 
amount  of  human  labor,  and  labor  of  the  most  precious 
kind,  now  wasted,  and  wasted,  too,  in  the  crudest  man- 
ner, for  want  of  combination,  is  incalculable.  What 
a  spectacle,  for  instance,  does  the  medical  profession 
present !  One  successful  practitioner  burthened  with 
more  work  than  mortal  man  can  perform,  and  which 
he  performs  so  summarily,  that  it  were  often  better  let 
alone  :  in  the  surrounding  streets,  twenty  unhappy  men, 


216  CmLIZATION. 

each  of  whom  has  been  as  laboriously  and  expensive- 
ly trained  as  he  has  to  do  the  very  same  thing,  and 
is  possibly  as  well  qualified,  wasting  their  capabilities, 
and  starvino:  for  want  of  work.  Under  better  arranse- 
ments,  these  twenty  would  form  a  corps  of  subalterns, 
marshalled  under  their  more  successful  leader ;  who 
(granting  him  to  be  really  the  ablest  physician  of  the 
set,  and  not  merely  the  most  successful  impostor)  is 
wasting  time  in  physicking  people  for  headaches  and 
heartburns,  which  he  might  with  better  economy  of 
mankind's  resoui-ces  turn  over  to  his  subordinates,  while 
he  employed  his  maturer  powers  and  greater  expe- 
rience in  studying  and  treating  those  more  obscure  and 
difficult  cases  upon  which  science  has  not  yet  thrown 
sufficient  light,  and  to  which  ordinary  knowledge  and 
abilities  would  not  be  adequate.  By  such  means,  every 
person's  capacities  would  be  turned  to  account ;  and,  the 
highest  minds  being  kept  for  the  highest  things,  these 
would  make  progress,  while  ordinary  occasions  would 
be  no  losers. 

But  it  is  in  literature,  above  all,  that  a  change  of 
this  sort  is  of  most  pressing  urgency.  There  the 
system  of  individual  competition  has  fairly  worked 
itself  out,  and  things  can  hardly  continue  much  longer 
as  they  are.  Literature  is  a  province  of  exertion,  upon 
which  more,  of  the  first  value  to  human  nature,  de- 
pends, than  upon  any  other;  a  province  in  which  the 
highest  and  most  valuable  order  of  works  —  those  which 
most  contribute  to  form  the  opinions  and  shape  the 
characters  of  subsequent  ages  —  are,  more  than  in  any 
other  class  of  productions,  placed  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  appreciation  by  those  who  form  the  bulk  of 


CIVILIZATION.  217 

the  purchasers  in  the  book-market ;  insomuch  that, 
even  in  a^es  when  these  were  a  far  less  numerous  and 
more  select  class  than  now,  it  was  an  admitted  point, 
that  the  only  success  which  writers  of  the  first  order 
could  look  to  was  the  verdict  of  posterity.  That  ver- 
dict could,  in  those  times,  be  confidently  expected  by 
whoever  was  worthy  of  it :  for  the  good  judges,  though 
few  in  number,  were  sure  to  read  every  work  of  merit 
which  appeared ;  and,  as  the  recollection  of  one  book 
was  not  in  those  days  immediately  obliterated  by  a 
hundred  others,  they  remembered  it,  and  kept  alive  the 
knowledge  of  it  to  subsequent  ages.  But  in  our  day, 
from  the  immense  multitude  of  Avriters  (which  is  now 
not  less  remarkable  than  the  multitude  of  readers), 
and  from  the  manner  in  which  the  people  of  this  age 
are  obliged  to  read,  it  is  difficidt,  for  what  does  not 
strike  during  its  novelty,  to  strike  at  all :  a  book  either 
misses  fire  altogether,  or  is  so  read  as  to  make  no  per- 
manent impression  ;  and  the  good  equally  with  the 
worthless  are  forgotten  by  the  next  day. 

For  this  there  is  no  remedy,  while  the  public  have 
no  guidance  beyond  booksellers'  advertisements,  and 
the  ill-considered  and  hasty  criticisms  of  newspapers 
and  small  periodicals,  to  direct  them  in  distinguishing 
what  is  not  worth  reading  from  what  is.  The  resource 
must  in  time  be  some  organized  co-operation  among 
the  leading  intellects  of  the  age,  whereby  works  of  first- 
rate  merit,  of  whatever  class ^  and  of  whatever  tendency 
in  point  of  opinion,  might  come  forth,  with  the  stamp 
on  them,  from  the  first,  of  the  approval  of  those  whose 
names  would  carry  authority.  There  are  many  causes 
why  we  must  wait  long  for  such  a  combination ;    but 


218  CIVILIZATION. 

(with  enormous  defects  both  in  plan  and  in  execution) 
the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowledge  was 
as  considerable  a  step  towards  it  as  could  be  expected  in 
the  present  state  of  men's  minds,  and  in  a  first  attempt. 
Literature  has  had  in  this  country  two  ages  :  it  must 
now  have  a  third.  The  age  of  patronage,  as  Johnson 
a  century  ago  proclaimed,  is  gone.  The  age  of  book- 
sellers, it  has  been  proclaimed  by  Mr.  Carlyle,  has  well 
nigh  died  out.  In  the  first,  there  was  nothing  intrin- 
sically base ;  nor,  in  the  second,  any  thing  inherently 
independent  and  liberal.  Each  has  done  great  things  : 
both  have  had  their  day.  The  time  is  perhaps  coming, 
when  authors,  as  a  collective  guild,  will  be  their  own 
patrons  and  their  own  booksellers. 

These  things  must  bide  their  time.  But  the  other  of 
the  two  great  desiderata,  the  regeneration  of  individual 
character  among  our  lettered  and  opulent  classes,  by 
the  adaptation  to  that  purpose  of  our  institutions,  and, 
above  all,  of  our  educational  institutions,  is  an  object 
of  more  urgency,  and  for  which  moi'e  might  be  imme- 
diately accompKshed,  if  the  will  and  the  understanding 
were  not  alike  wanting. 

This,  unfortunately,  is  a  subject  on  which,  for  the 
inculcation  of  rational  views,  every  thing  is  yet  to  be 
done ;  for  all  that  we  would  inculcate,  all  that  we 
deem  of  vital  importance,  all  upon  which  we  conceive 
the  salvation  of  the  next  and  all  future  ages  to  rest,  has 
the  misfortune  to  be  almost  equally  opposed  to  the  most 
popular  doctrines  of  our  own  time,  and  to  the  preju- 
dices of  those  who  cherish  the  empty  husk  of  what  has 
descended  from  ancient  times.     We  are  at  issue  equally 


CIVILIZATIOX.  219 

with  the  admirers  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  Eton  and 
Westminster,  and  with  the  generality  of  their  professed 
reformers.  We  regard  the  system  of  those  institutions, 
as  administered  for  two  centuries  past,  with  sentiments 
little  short  of  utter  abhorrence.  But  we  do  not  con- 
ceive that  their  vices  would  be  cured  by  bringing  their 
studies  into  a  closer  connection  with  what  it  is  the 
fashion  to  term  "  the  business  of  the  world ; "  by  dis- 
missing the  logic  and  classics  which  are  still  professedly 
taught,  to  substitute  modern  languages  and  experimen- 
tal physics.  We  would  have  classics  and  logic  taught 
far  more  really  and  deeply  than  at  present ;  and  we 
would  add  to  them  other  studies  more  alien  than  any 
which  yet  exist  to  the  "business  of  the  world,"  but 
more  german  to  the  great  business  of  every  rational 
being,  —  the  strengthening  and  enlarging  of  his  own 
intellect  and  character.  The  empirical  knowledge  which 
the  world  demands,  which  is  the  stock  in  trade  of 
money-getting  life,  we  would  leave  the  world  to  provide 
for  itself;  content  with  infusing  into  the  youth  of  our 
country  a  spii'it,  and  training  them  to  habits,  which 
would  insure  their  acquiring  such  knowledge  easily, 
and  using  it  well.  These,  we  know,  are  not  the  senti- 
ments of  the  vulgar :  but  we  believe  them  to  be  those 
of  the  best  and  wisest  of  all  parties ;  and  we  are  glad 
to  corroborate  our  opinion  by  a  quotation  from  a  work 
written  by  a  friend  to  the  universities,  and  by  one 
whose  tendencies  are  rather  conservative  than  liberal ; 
a  book  which,  though  really,  and  not  in  form  merely, 
one  of  fiction,  contains  much  subtle  and  ingenious 
thought,  and  the  results  of  much  psychological  expe- 
rience, combined,  we  are  compelled  to  say,  with  much 


220  CIVILIZATIOX. 

caricature,  and  very  provoking  (though  we  are  con- 
vinced unintentional)  distortion  and  misinterpretation 
of  the  opinions  of  some  of  those  with  whose  philosophy 
that  of  the  author  does  not  agree. 

"'You  believe'  (a  clergyman  loquitur)  'that  the  univer- 
sity is  to  prepare  youths  for  a  successful  cai-eer  in  society :  I 
believe  the  sole  object  is  to  give  them  that  manly  character 
which  will  enable  them  to  resist  the  influences  of  society.  I 
do  not  care  to  prove  that  1  am  right,  and  tliat  any  university 
which  does  not  stand  upon  this  basis  will  be  rickety  in  its 
childhood,  and  useless  or  mischievous  in  its  manhood :  I  care 
only  to  assert  that  this  was  the  notion  of  those  who  founded 
Oxford  and  Cambridge.  I  fear  that  their  successors  are 
gradually  losing  sight  of  this  principle  ;  are  gradually  begin- 
ning to  think  that  it  is  their  business  to  turn  out  clever  law- 
yers and  serviceable  treasury-clerks ;  are  pleased  when  the 
world  compliments  them  upon  the  goodness  of  the  article  with 
which  they  have  furnished  it;  and  that  this  low  vanity  is 
absorbing  all  their  will  and  their  power  to  create  great  men, 
whom  the  age  will  scorn,  and  who  will  save  it  from  the  scorn 
of  the  times  to  come.' 

" '  One  or  two  such  men,'  said  the  liberal,  '  in  a  generation 
may  be  very  useful ;  but  the  university  gives  us  two  or  three 
thousand  youths  every  year.  I  suppose  you  are  content  that 
a  portion  shall  do  week-day  services.' 

" '  I  wish  to  have  a  far  more  hard-working  and  active  race 
than  we  have  at  present,'  said  the  clergyman ;  '  men  more 
persevering  in  toil,  and  less  impatient  of  reward :  but  all 
experience  —  a  thing  which  the  schools  are  not  privileged  to 
despise,  though  the  world  is  —  all  experience  is  against  the 
notion,  that  the  means  to  procure  a  supply  of  good  ordinary 
men  is  to  attempt  nothing  higher.  I  know  that  nine-tenths 
of  those  whom  the  university  sends  out  must  be  hewers  of 
wood,  and  drawers  of  water;  but,  if  I  train  the  ten-tenths  to 


CIVILIZATION.  221 

be  so,  depend  upon  it  the  wood  will  be  badly  cut,  the  water 
will  be  spilt.  Aim  at  something  noble :  make  your  system 
such  that  a  great  man  may  be  formed  by  it,  and  there  will  be 
a  manhood  in  your  little  men,  of  which  you  do  not  dream. 
But  when  some  skilful  rhetorician,  or  lucky  rat,  stands  at  the 
top  of  the  ladder ;  when  the  university,  instead  of  disclaim- 
ing the  creature,  instead  of  pleading,  as  an  excuse  for  them- 
selves, that  the  healthiest  mother  may,  by  accident,  produce 
a  shapeless  abortion,  stands  shouting,  that  the  world  may 
know  what  great  things  they  can  do,  "  We  taught  the  boy  ! " 
when  the  hatred  which  worldly  men  will  bear  to  religion 
always,  and  to  learning  whenever  it  teaches  us  to  soar,  and 
not  to  grovel,  is  met,  not  with  a  frank  defiance,  but  rather  with 
a  deceitful  argument,  to  show  that  trade  is  the  better  for 
them,  —  is  it  wonderful  that  a  puny,  beggarly  feeling  should 
pervade  the  mass  of  our  young  men ;  that  they  should  scorn 
all  noble  achievements ;  should  have  no  higher  standard  of 
action  than  the  world's  opinion ;  and  should  conceive  of  no 
higher  reward  than  to  sit  down  amidst  loud  cheering,  which 
continues  for  several  moments ? '"  * 

Nothing  can  be  more  just  or  more  forcible  than  the 
description  here  given  of  the  objects  which  university 
education  should  aim  at :  we  are  at  issue  with  the 
writer,  only  on  the  proposition  that  these  objects  ever 
were  attained,  or  ever  could  be  so,  consistently  with  the 
principle  which  has  always  been  the  foundation  of 
the  English  universities  ;  a  principle,  unfortunately,  by 
no  means  confined  to  them.  The  difficulty  which  con- 
tinues to  oppose  either  such  reform  of  our  old  academical 
institutions,  or  the  establishment  of  such  new  ones,  as 
shall  give  us  an  education  capable  of  forming  great 
minds,  is,  that,  in  order  to  do  so,  it  is  necessary  to  begin 

*  From  the  novel  of  "  Eustace  Conway,"  attributed  to  Mr.  Maurice. 


222  CIVILIZATION. 

by  eradicating  the  idea  which  nearly  all  the  upholders 
and  nearly  all  the  impugners  of  the  universities  rootedly 
entertain  as  to  the  objects,  not  merely  of  academical 
education,  but  of  education  itself.  What  is  this  idea? 
That  the  object  of  education  is,  not  to  qualify  the  pupil 
for  judging  what  is  true  or  what  is  right,  but  to  pro- 
vide that  he  shall  think  true  what  we  think  true,  and 
right  what  Ave  think  right ;  that  to  teach,  means  to 
inculcate  our  own  opinions ;  and  that  our  business  is, 
not  to  make  thinkers  or  inquirers,  but  disciples.  This 
is  the  deep-seated  error,  the  inveterate  prejudice,  which 
the  real  reformer  of  English  education  has  to  struggle 
against.  Is  it  astonishing  that  great  minds  are  not 
produced  in  a  country  where  the  test  of  a  great  mind 
is,  agreeing  in  the  opinions  of  the  small  minds?  where 
every  institution  for  spiritual  culture  which  the  country 
has  —  the  Church,  the  universities,  and  almost  every 
dissenting  community  —  are  constituted  on  the  follow- 
ing as  their  avowed  principle?  —  that  the  object  is,  not 
that  the  individual  should  go  forth  determined  and 
qualified  to  seek  truth  ardently,  vigorously,  and  disin- 
terestedly ;  not  that  he  be  furnished  at  setting  out  with 
the  needful  aids  and  facilities,  the  needful  materials  and 
instruments,  for  that  search,  and  then  left  to  the  un- 
shackled use  of  them ;  not  that,  by  a  free  communion 
with  the  thoughts  and  deeds  of  the  great  minds  which 
preceded  him,  he  be  inspired  at  once  with  the  courage 
to  dare  all  which  truth  and  conscience  require,  and  the 
modesty  to  weigh  well  the  grounds  of  what  others 
think,  before  adopting  contrary  opinions  of  his  own : 
not  this,  — no  ;  but  that  the  triumph  of  the  system,  the 
merit,  the  excellence  in  the  sight  of  God  which  it  pos- 


CIVILIZATION.  223 

sesses,  or  which  it  can  impart  to  its  pupil,  is,  that  his 
speculations  shall  terminate  in  the  adoption,  in  words, 
of  a  particular  set  of  opinions  ;  —  that,  provided  he 
adhere  to  these  opinions,  it  matters  little  whether  he  re- 
ceive them  from  authority  or  from  examination ;  and, 
worse,  that  it  matters  little  by  what  temptations  of 
interest  or  vanity,  by  what  voluntary  or  involuntary 
sophistication  with  his  intellect,  and  deadening  of  his 
noblest  feelings,  that  result  is  arrived  at ;  that  it  even 
matters  comparatively  little  whether  to  his  mind  the 
words  are  mere  words,  or  the  representatives  of  reali- 
ties, —  in  what  sense  he  receives  the  favored  set  of 
propositions,  or  whether  he  attaches  to  them  any  sense 
at  all.  Were  ever  great  minds  thus  formed  ?  Never. 
The  few  great  minds  which  this  country  has  produced 
have  been  formed  in  spite  of  nearly  every  thing  which 
could  be  done  to  stifle  their  growth.  And  all  thinkers 
much  above  the  common  order,  who  have  grown  up  in 
the  Church  of  England  or  in  any  other  church,  have 
been  produced  in  latitudinarian  epochs,  or  while  the 
impulse  of  intellectual  emancipation,  which  gave  exist- 
ence to  the  Church,  had  not  quite  spent  itself.  The 
flood  of  burning  metal  which  issued  from  the  furnace 
flowed  on  a  few  paces  before  it  congealed. 

That  the  English  universities  have,  throughout,  pro- 
ceeded on  the  principle,  that  the  intellectual  association 
of  mankind  must  be  founded  upon  articles,  —  i.e.,  upon 
a  promise  of  belief  in  certain  opinions ;  that  the  scope 
of  all  they  do  is  to  prevail  upon  their  pupils,  by  fair 
means  or  foul,  to  acquiesce  in  the  opinions  which  are 
set  down  for  them  ;  that  the  abuse  of  the  human  facul- 
ties, 80  forcibly  denounced  by  Locke  under  the  name 


224  civrLiZATiON. 

of  "  principling "  their  pupils,  is  their  sole  method  in 
religion,  politics,  morality,  or  philosophy,  —  is  vicious 
indeed :  but  the  vice  is  equally  prevalent  without  and 
within  their  pale,  and  is  no  farther  disgraceful  to  them 
than  inasmuch  as  a  better  doctrine  has  been  taught  for 
a  century  past  by  the  superior  spirits,  with  whom,  in 
point  of  intelligence,  it  was  their  duty  to  maintain  them- 
selves on  a  level.  But  that,  when  this  object  was 
attained,  they  cared  for  no  other ;  that,  if  they  could 
make  church-men,  they  cared  not  to  make  religious 
men ;  that,  if  they  could  make  Tories,  whether  they 
made  patriots  was  indifferent  to  them ;  that,  if  they 
could  prevent  heresy,  they  cared  not  if  the  price  paid 
were  stupidity,  —  this  constitutes-  the  peculiar  baseness 
of  those  bodies.  Look  at  them.  While  their  sectarian 
character,  while  the  exclusion  of  all  who  will  not  sign 
away  their  freedom  of  thought,  is  contended  for,  as 
if  life  depended  upon  it,  there  is  hardly  a  trace  in  the 
system  of  the  universities  that  any  other  object  what- 
ever is  seriously  cared  for.  Nearly  all  the  professor- 
ships have  degenerated  into  sinecures.  Few  of  the 
professors  ever  deliver  a  lecture.  One  of  the  few  great 
scholars  who  have  issued  from  either  university  for  a 
century  (and  he  was  such  before  he  went  thither) ,  the 
Rev.  Connop  Thirlwall,  has  published  to  the  world, 
that,  in  his  university  at  least,  even  theology  —  even 
Church-of-England  theology  —  is  not  taught ;  and  his 
dismissal,  for  this  piece  of  honesty,  from  the  tutorship 
of  his  college,  is  one  among  the  daily  proofs  how  much 
safer  it  is  for  twenty  men  to  neglect  their  duty,  than  for 
one  man  to  impeach  them  of  the  neglect.  The  only 
studies  really  encouraged  are  classics  and  mathematics ; 


CIVILIZATION.  225 

neither  of  them  a  useless  study,  though  the  last,  as  an 
exclusive  instrument  for  fashioning  the  mental  powers, 
greatly  overrated  :  but  Mr.  Whewell,  a  high  authority 
against  his  own  university,  has  published  a  pamphlet, 
chiefly  to  prove  that  the  kind  of  mathematical  attain- 
ment by  which  Cambridge  honors  are  gained  (expert- 
ness  in  the  use  of  the  calculus)  is  not  that  kind  which 
has  any  tendency  to  produce  superiority  of  intellect.* 
The  mere  shell  and  husk  of  the  syllogistic  logic  at  the 
one  university,  the  wretchedest  smattering  of  Locke 
and  Paley  at  the  other,  are  all  of  moral  or  psychological 
science  that  is  taught  at  either,  j  As  a  means  of  edu- 
cating the  many,  the  universities  are  absolutely  null. 
The  youth  of  England  are  not  educated.  The  attain- 
ments of , any  kind  required  for  taking  all  the  degrees 
conferred  by  these  bodies,  are,  at  Cambridge,  utterly 
contemptible ;  at  Oxford,  we  believe,  of  late  years, 
somewhat  higher,  but  still  very  low.  Honors,  indeed, 
are  not  gained  but  by  a  severe  struggle ;  and,  if  even 
the  candidates  for  honors  were  mentally  benefited,  the 
system  would  not  be  worthless.     But  what  have  the 

*  The  erudite  and  able  writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  (Sir  William 
Hamilton),  who  has  expended  an  almost  superfluous  weight  of  argument 
and  authority  in  combating  the  position  incidentally  maintained  in  Mr. 
Whewell's  pamphlet,  of  the  great  value  of  mathematics  as  an  exercise  of 
the  mind,  was,  we  think,  bound  to  have  noticed  the  fact,  that  the  far  more 
direct  object  of  the  pamphlet  was  one  which  partially  coincided  with  that 
of  its  reviewer.  We  do  not  think  that  Mr.  Whewell  has  done  well  what  he 
undertook :  he  is  vague,  and  is  alwa^'s  attempting  to  be  a  profounder  meta- 
physician than  he  can  be ;  but  the  main  proposition  of  his  pamphlet  is  true 
and  important;  and  he  is  entitled  to  no  little  credit  for  having  discerned 
that  important  truth,  and  expressed  it  so  strongly. 

t  We  should  except,  at  Oxford,  the  Ethics,  Politics,  and  Rhetoric  of 
Aristotle.  These  are  part  of  the  course  of  classical  instruction ;  and  are  so 
far  an  exception  to  the  rule,  otherwise  pretty  faithfully  observed  at  both 
universities,  of  cultivating  only  the  least  useful  parts  of  ancient  literature. 

VOL.    I.  15 


226  CIVILIZATION. 

senior  wranjjlers  done,  even  in  mathematics?  Has 
Cambridge  produced,  since  Newton,  one  great  mathe- 
matical genius  ?  —  we  do  not  say  an  Euler,  a  Laplace, 
or  a  Lagrange,  but  such  as  France  has  produced  a  score 
of  during  the  same  period.  How  many  books  which 
have  thrown  light  upon  the  history,  antiquities,  philos- 
ophy, art,  or  literature  of  the  ancients,  have  the  two 
universities  sent  forth  since  the  Reformation?  Com- 
pare them,  not  merely  with  Germany,  but  even  with 
Italy  or  France.  When  a  man  is  pronounced  by  them 
to  have  excelled  in  their  studies,  what  do  the  universi- 
ties do  ?  They  give  him  an  income,  not  for  continuing 
to  learn,  but  for  having  learnt ;  not  for  doing  any  thing, 
but  for  what  he  has  already  done ;  on  condition  solely 
of  living  like  a  monk,  and  putting  on  the  livery  of  the 
Church  at  the  end  of  seven  years.  They  bribe  men  by 
high  rewards  to  get  their  arms  ready,  but  do  not  require 
them  to  fight.* 

Are  these  the  places  of  education  which  are  to  send 
forth  minds  capable  of  maintaining  a  victorious  strug- 
gle with  the  debilitating  influences  of  the  age,  and 
strengthening  the  weak  side  of  civilization  by  the  sup- 
port of  a  higher  cultivation?  This,  however,  is  what 
we  require  from  these  institutions  ;  or,  in  their  default, 
from  others  which  should  take  their  place.  And  the 
very  first  step  towards  their  reform  should  be  to  unsec- 
tarianize  them  wholly,  not  by  the  paltry  measure  of 

*  Much  of  what  is  here  said  of  the  universities,  has,  in  a  great  measure, 
ceased  to  be  true.  The  Legislature  has  at  last  asserted  its  right  of  interfer- 
ence ;  and,  even  before  it  did  so,  the  bodies  had  already  entered  into  a  course 
of  as  decided  improvement  as  any  other  English  institutions.  But  I  leave 
these  pages  unaltered,  as  matter  of  historical  record,  and  as  an  illustration 
of  tendencies.     [1859.] 


CIVILIZATION.  227 

allowing  Dissenters  to  come  and  be  taught  orthodox 
sectarianism,  but  by  putting  an  end  to  sectarian  teach- 
ing altogether.  The  principle  itself  of  dogmatic  reli- 
gion, dogmatic  morality,  dogmatic  philosophy,  is  what 
requires  to  be  rooted  out,  not  any  particular  manifesta- 
tion of  that  principle. 

The  very  corner-stone  of  an  education  intended  to 
form  great  minds  must  be  the  recognition  of  the  prin- 
ciple, that  the  object  is  to  call  forth  the  greatest  possible 
quantity  of  intellectual  power,  and  to  inspire  the  in- 
tensest  love  of  truth;  and  this  without  a  particle  of 
regard  to  the  results  to  which  the  exercise  of  that  power 
may  lead,  even  though  it  should  conduct  the  pupil  to 
opinions  diametrically  opposite  to  those  of  his  teachers. 
We  say  this,  not  because  we  think  opinions  unimpor- 
tant, but  because  of  the  immense  importance  which 
we  attach  to  them :  for  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of 
intellectual  power,  and  love  of  truth,  which  we  succeed 
in  creating,  is  the  certainty,  that  (whatever  may  happen 
in  any  one  particular  instance),  in  the  aggregate  of 
instances,  true  opinions  will  be  the  result;  and  intel- 
lectual power  and  practical  love  of  truth  are  alike 
impossible  where  the  reasoner  is  shown  his  conclusions, 
and  informed  beforehand  that  he  is  expected  to  arrive 
at  them. 

We  are  not  so  absurd  as  to  propose  that  the  teacher 
should  not  set  forth  his  own  opinions  as  the  true  ones, 
and  exert  his  utmost  powers  to  exhibit  their  truth  in  the 
strongest  light.  To  abstain  from  this  would  be  to  nour- 
ish the  worst  intellectual  habit  of  all,  — that  of  not  find- 
ing, and  not  looking  for,  certainty  in  any  thing.  But  the 
teacher  himself  should  not  be  held  to  any  creed ;   nor 


228  crviLiZATiON.  ' 

should  the  question  be,  whether  his  own  opinions  are 
'  the  true  ones,  but  whether  he  is  well  instructed  in  those 
of  other  people,  and,  in  enforcing  his  own,  states  the 
argumcijts  for  all  conflicting  opinions  fairlj.  In  this 
spirit  it  is  that  all  the  great  subjects  are  taught  from 
the  chairs  of  the  German  and  French  universities.  As 
a  general  rule,  the  most  distinguished  teacher  is  selected, 
whatever  be  his  particular  views  ;  and  he  consequently 
teaches  in  the  spirit  of  free  inquiry,  not  of  dogmatic 
imposition. 

Such  is  the  principle  of  all  academical  instruction 
which  aims  at  forming  great  minds.  The  details  cannot 
be  too  various  and  comprehensive.  Ancient  literature 
would  fill  a  large  place  in  such  a  course  of  instruction, 
because  it  brings  before  us  the  thoughts  and  actions  of 
many  great  minds,  —  minds  of  many  various  orders  of 
greatness,  and  these  related  and  exhibited  in  a  manner 
tenfold  more  impressive,  tenfold  more  calculated  to  call 
forth  high  aspirations,  than  in  any  modern  literature. 
Imperfectly  as  these  impressions  are  made  by  the  current 
modes  of  classical  teaching,  it  is  incalculable  what  we 
owe  to  this,  the  sole  ennobling  feature  in  the  slavish, 
mechanical  thing  which  the  moderns  call  education. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  among  the  benefits  of  famili- 
arity  with  the  monuments  of  antiquity,  and  especially 
those  of  Greece,  that  we  are  taught  by  it  to  appreciate 
and  to  admire  intrinsic  greatness,  amidst  opinions, 
habits,  and  institutions  most  remote  from  ours ;  and 
are  thus  trained  to  that  large  and  catholic  toleration 
which  is  founded  on  understanding,  not  on  indifference, 
and  to  a  habit  of  free,  open  sympathy  with  powers  of 
mind,  and  nobleness  of  character,  howsoever  exemplified. 


CIVILIZATION.  229 

Were  but  the  languages  and  literature  of  antiquity  so 
taught  that  the  glorious  images  they  present  might 
stand  before  the  student's  eyes  as  living  and  glowing 
realities  ;  that  instead  of  lying  a  caput  tnortuwaa  at  the 
bottom  of  his  mind,  like  some  foreign  substance  in  no 
way  influencing  the  current  of  his  thoughts  or  the  tone 
of  his  feelings,  they  might  circulate  through  it,  and 
become  assimilated,  and  be  part  and  parcel  of  himself  I 
—  then  should  we  see  how  little  these  studies  have  yet 
done  for  us,  compared  with  what  they  have  yet  to  do. 

An  important  place  in  the  system  of  education  which 
we  contemplate  would  be  occupied  by  history,  because 
it  is  the  record  of  all  great  things  which  have  been 
achieved  by  mankind,  and  because,  when  philosophically 
studied,  it  gives  a  certain  largeness  of  conception  to  the 
student,  and  familiarizes  him  with  the  action  of  great 
causes.  In  no  other  way  can  he  so  completely  realize 
in  his  own  mind  (howsoever  he  may  be  satisfied  with 
the  proof  of  them  as  abstract  propositions)  the  great 
principles  by  which  the  progress  of  man  and  the  con- 
dition of  society  are  governed.  Nowhere  else  will  the 
infinite  varieties  of  human  nature  be  so  vividly  brought 
home  to  him,  and  any  thing  cramped  or  one-sided  in  his 
own  standard  of  it  so  effectually  corrected  ;  and  nowhere 
else  will  he  behold  so  strongly  exemplified  the  astonish- 
ing pliability  of  our  nature,  and  the  vast  efiects  which 
may  under  good  guidance  be  produced  upon  it  by  honest 
endeavor.  The  literature  of  our  own  and  other  modern 
nations  should  be  studied  along  with  the  history,  or 
rather  as  part  of  the  history. 

In  the  department  of  pure  intellect,  the  highest  place 
will  belong  to  logic  and  the  philosophy  of  mind :   the 


230  CIVILIZATION. 

one,  the  instrument  for  the  cultivation  of  all  sciences ; 
the  other,  the  root  from  which  they  all  grow.  It 
scarcely  needs  be  said  that  the  former  ought  not  to  be 
taught  as  a  mere  system  of  technical  rules,  nor  the  lat- 
ter as  a  set  of  concatenated  abstract  propositions.  The 
tendency,  so  strong  everywhere,  is  strongest  of  all  here, 
to  receive  opinions  into  the  mind  without  any  real 
understanding  of  them,  merely  because  they  seem  to 
follow  from  certain  admitted  premises,  and  to  let  them 
lie  there  as  forms  of  words,  lifeless,  and  void  of  meaning. 
The  pupil  must  be  led  to  interrogate  his  own  conscious- 
ness, to  observe  and  experiment  upon  himself:  of  the 
mind,  by  any  other  process,  little  will  he  ever  know. 

With  these  should  be  joined  all  those  sciences  in 
which  great  and  certain  results  are  arrived  at  by  mental 
processes  of  some  length  or  nicety  :  not  that  all  persons 
should  study  all  these  sciences,  but  that  some  should 
study  all,  and  all  some.  These  may  be  divided  into 
sciences  of  mere  ratiocination,  as  mathematics ;  and 
sciences  partly  of  ratiocination,  and  partly  of  what  is  far 
more  difficult,  —  comprehensive  observation  and  analy- 
sis. Such  are,  in  their  rationale,  even  the  sciences  to 
which  mathematical  processes  are  applicable ;  and  such 
are  all  those  which  relate  to  human  nature.  The  phi- 
losophy of  morals,  of  government,  of  law,  of  political 
economy,  of  poetry  and  art,  should  form  subjects  of 
systematic  instruction,  under  the  most  eminent  profess- 
ors who  could  be  found ;  these  being  chosen,  not  for 
the  particular  doctrines  they  might  happen  to  profess, 
but  as  being  those  who  were  most  likely  to  send  forth 
pupils  qualified  in  point  of  disposition  and  attainments 
to  choose  doctrines  for  themselves.     And  why  should 


CIVILIZATION.  231 

not  religion  be  taught  in  the  same  manner?  Not  until 
then  will  one  step  be  made  towards  the  healing  of 
religious  differences  ;  not  until  then  will  the  spirit  of 
English  religion  become  catholic  instead  of  sectarian, 
favorable  instead  of  hostile  to  freedom  of  thought  and 
the  progress  of  the  human  mind. 

With  regard  to  the  change's,  in  forms  of  polity  and 
social  arrangements,  which,  in  addition  to  reforms  in 
education,  we  conceive  to  be  required  for  regenerating 
the  character  of  the  higher  classes,  —  to  express  them 
even  summarily  would  require  a  long  discourse.  But 
the  general  idea  from  which  they  all  emanate  may  be 
stated  briefly.  Civihzation  has  brought  about  a  degree 
of  secmity  and  fixity  in  th^  possession  of  all  advantages 
once  acquired,  which  has  rendered  it  possible  for  a  rich 
man  to  lead  the  life  of  a  Sybarite,  and  nevertheless 
enjoy  throughout  life  a  degree  of  power  and  considera- 
tion which  could  formerly  be  earned  or  retained  only  by 
personal  activity.  We  cannot  undo  what  civilization 
has  done,  and  again  stimulate  the  energy  of  the  higher 
classes  by  insecurity  of  property,  or  danger  of  life  or 
limb.  The  only  adventitious  motive  it  is  in  the  power 
of  society  to  hold  out  is  reputation  and  consequence ; 
and  of  this  as  much  use  as  possible  should  be  made  for 
the  encouragement  of  desert.  The  main  thing  which 
social  changes  can  do  for  the  improvement  of  the  higher 
classes  —  and  it  is  what  the  progress  of  democracy  is 
insensibly  but  certainly  accomplishing  —  is  gradually 
to  put  an  end  to  every  kind  of  unearned  distinction, 
and  let  the  only  road  open  to  honor  and  ascendency  be 
that  of  personal  qualities: 


232 


APHORISMS.* 


A    FRAGMENT. 


There  are  two  kinds  of  wisdom  :  in  the  one,  every 
age  in  which  science  flourishes  surpasses,  or  ought  to 
surpass,  its  predecessors  ;  of  the  other,  there  is  nearly 
an  equal  amount  in  all  ages.  The  first  is  the  wisdom 
which  depends  on  long  chains  of  reasoning,  a  compre- 
hensive survey  of  the  whole  of  a  great  subject  at  once, 
or  complicated  and  subtle  processes  of  metaphysical 
analysis  :  this  is  properly  philosophy.  The  other  is 
that  acquired  by  experience  of  life,  and  a  good  use  of 
the  opportunities  possessed  by  all  who  have  mingled 
much  with  the  world,  or  who  have  a  large  share  of 
human  nature  in  their  own  breasts.  This  unsystematic 
wisdom,  drawn  by  acute  minds,  in  all  periods  of  history, 
from  their  personal  experience,  is  properly  termed  the 
wisdom  of  ages  ;  and  every  lettered  age  has  left  a  por- 
tion of  it  upon  record.  It  is  nowhere  more  genuine 
than  in  the  old  fabulists,  ^sop  and  others.  The 
speeches  in  Thucydides  are  among  the  most  remarkable 
specimens  of  it.  Aristotle  and  Quintilian  have  worked 
up  rich  stores  of  it  into  their  systematic  writings  ;  nor 
ought  Horace's  "  Satires,"  and  especially  his  "Epistles," 
to  be  forgotten.  But  the  form  in  which  this  kind  of 
wisdom  most  naturally  embodies  itself  is  that  of  aphor- 

*  London  and  Westminster  Review,  January,  1837. 


APHORISMS.  233 

isms ;  and  such,  from  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon  to  our 
own  day,  is  the  shape  it  has  oftenest  assumed. 

Some  persons,  who  cannot  be  satisfied  unless  they 
have  the  forms  of  accurate  knowledge  as  well  as  the 
substance,  object  to  aphorisms,  because  they  are  unsys- 
tematic. These  objectors  forget  that  to  be  unsystematic 
is  of  the  essence  of  all  truths  which  rest  on  specific 
experiment.  A  systematic  treatise  is  the  most  natural 
form  for  deliverinfj  truths  which  grow  out  of  one 
another ;  but  truths ,  each  of  which  rests  on  its  own 
independent  evidence,  may  surely  be  exhibited  in  the 
same  unconnected  state  in  which  they  were  discovered. 
Philosophy  may  afterwards  trace  the  connection  among 
these  truths,  detect  the  more  general  principles  of  which 
they  are  manifestations,  and  so  systematize  the  whole. 
But  we  need  not  wait  till  this  is  done  before  we  record 
them  and  act  upon  them.  On  the  contrary,  these  de- 
tached truths  are  at  once  the  materials  and  the  tests  of 
philosophy  itself;  since  philosophy  is  not  called  in  to 
prove  them,  but  may  very  justly  be  required  to  account 
for  them. 

A  more  valid  objection  to  aphorisms,  as  far  as  it 
goes,  is,  that  they  are  very  seldom  exactly  true  ;  but 
then  this,  unfortunately,  is  an  objection  to  all  human 
knowledge.  A  proverb  or  an  apothegm  —  any  propo- 
sition epigi-ammatically  expressed  —  almost  always  goes 
more  or  less  beyond  the  strict  truth  :  the  fact  which  it 
states  is  enunciated  in  a  more  unqualified  manner  than 
the  truth  warrants.  But  when  logicians  have  done  their 
best  to  correct  the  proposition  by  just  modifications  and 
limitations,  is  the  case  much  mended?  Very  little. 
Every  really  existing  thing  is  a  compound  of  such  in- 


234  APHORISMS. 

numerable  properties,  and  has  such  an  infinity  of  rela- 
tions with  all  other  things  in  the  universe,  that  almost 
every  law  to  which  it  appears  to  be  subject  is  liable  to 
be  set  aside  or  frustrated,  either  by  some  other  law  of 
the  same  object,  or  by  the  laws  of  some  other  object 
which  interferes  mth  it ;  and  as  no  one  can  possibly  foresee 
or  grasp  all  these  contingencies,  much  less  express  them 
in  such  an  imperfect  language  as  that  of  words,  no  one 
needs  flatter  himself  that  he  can  lay  down  propositions 
sufficiently  specific  to  be  available  for  practice,  which  he 
may  afterwards  apply  mechanically,  without  any  exer- 
cise of  thoug^ht.  It  is  given  to  no  human  being;  to  stereo- 
tyjDC  a  set  of  truths,  and  Avalk  safely  by  their  guidance 
with  his  mind's  eye  closed.  Let  us  envelop  our  propo- 
sition with  what  exceptions  and  qualifications  we  may, 
fresh  exceptions  will  turn  up,  and  fresh  qualifications 
be  found  necessary,  the  moment  any  one  attempts  to 
act  upon  it.  Not  aphorisms,  therefore,  alone,  but  all 
general  propositions  whatever,  require  to  be  taken  with 
a  large  allowance  for  inaccuracy ;  and  we  may  venture 
to  add,  this  allowance  is  much  more  likely  to  be  made, 
when,  the  proposition  being  avowedly  presented  without 
any  limitations,  every  one  must  see  that  he  is  left  to 
make  the  limitations  for  himself. 

If  aphorisms  were  less  likely  than  systems  to  have 
truth  in  them,  it  would  be  difficult  to  account  for  the 
fact  that  almost  all  books  of  aphorisms,  which  have 
ever  acquired  a  reputation,  have  retained,  and  deserved 
to  retain  it ;  while  how  wofully  the  reverse  is  the  case 
with  systems  of  philosophy,  no  student  is  ignorant. 
One  reason  for  this  difference  may  be,  that  books  of 
aphorisms  are  seldom  written  but  by  persons  of  genius. 


APHORISMS.  235 

There  are,  indeed,  to  be  found  books  like  Mr.  Colton's 
"Lacon,"  —  centos  of  trite  truisms,  and  trite  falsisms 
pinched  into  epigrams.  But,  on  the  whole,  he  who 
draws  his  thoughts  (as  Coleridge  says)  from  a  cistern, 
and  not  from  a  spring,  will  generally  be  more  sparing 
of  them  than  to  give  ten  ideas  in  a  page  instead  of  ten 
pages  to  an  idea.  And,  where  there  is  originality  in 
aphorisms,  there  is  generally  truth,  or  a  bold  approach 
to  some  truth  which  really  lies  beneath.  A  scientific 
system  is  often  spun  out  of  a  few  original  assumptions, 
without  any  intercourse  with  nature  at  all ;  but  he  who 
has  generalized  copiously  and  variously  from  actual 
experience  must  have  thrown  aside  so  many  of  his  first 
generalizations  as  he  went  on,  that  the  residuum  can 
hardly  be  altogether  worthless. 

Of  books  of  aphorisms  written  by  men  of  genius, 
the  "Pensi^es"  of  Pascal  is,  perhaps,  the  least  valuable 
in  comparison  with  its  reputation  ;  but  even  this,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  aphoristic,  is  acute  and  profound :  it  fails 
when  it  is  perverted  by  the  author's  systematic  views 
on  religion.  La  Rochefoucault,  again,  has  been  in- 
veighed against  as  a  "libeller  of  human  nature,"  &c., 
cliiefly  from  not  understanding  his  drift.  His  "Maxims  " 
are  a  series  of  delineations,  by  a  most  penetrating  ob- 
server, of  the  workings  of  habitual  selfishness  in  the 
human  breast ;  and  they  are  true  to  the  letter  of  all 
thoroughly  selfish  persons,  and  of  all  other  persons  in 
proportion  as  they  are  selfish.  A  man  of  a  warmer 
sympathy  with  mankind  would  indeed  have  envmciated 
his  propositions  in  less  sweeping  terms  ;  not  that  there 
was  any  fear  of  leading  the  world  into  the  mistake  that 
there  was  neither  virtue  nor  feeling  in  it,  but  because 


236  APHORISMS. 

a  generous  spirit  could  not  have  borne  to  chain  itself 
down  to  the  contemplation  of  littleness  and  meanness, 
unless  for  the  express  purpose  of  showing  to  others 
against  what  degrading  influences,  and  in  what  an  un- 
genial  atmosphere,  it  was  possible  to  maintain  elevation 
of  feeling,  and  nobleness  of  conduct.  The  error  of  La 
Rochefoucault  has  been  avoided  by  Chamfort,  the  more 
high-minded  and  more  philosophic  La  Rochefoucault 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  In  his  posthumous  work, 
the  "Pensdes,  Maximes,  Caracteres,  et  Anecdotes"  (a 
book  which,  to  its  other  merits,  adds  that  of  being  one 
of  the  best  collections  of  bons  tnots  in  existence),  he 
lays  open  the  basest  parts  of  vulgar  human  nature  with 
as  keen  an  instrument  and  as  unshrinking  a  hand  as  his 
precursor ;  but  not  with  that  cool  indifference  of  man- 
ner, like  a  man  who  is  only  thinking  of  saying  clever 
things  :  he  does  it  with  the  concentrated  bitterness  of 
one  whose  own  life  has  been  made  valueless  to  him  by 
having  his  lot  cast  among  these  basenesses,  and  whose 
sole  consolation  is  in  the  thought  that  human  nature  is 
not  the  wretched  thing  it  appears,  and  that,  in  better 
circumstances,  it  will  produce  better  things.  Nor  does 
he  ever  leave  his  reader,  for  long  together,  without 
being  reminded  that  he  is  speaking,  not  of  what  might 
be,  but  of  what  now  is. 


237 


ARMAND    CARREL.* 

BIOGRAPHICAL    NOTICES    BY    MM.    NISARD    AND    LITTR^. 

These  little  works  are  the  tribute  paid  bj  two  dis- 
tinguished writers  to  one  whose  memory,  though  he 
was  but  shown  to  the  world,  the  world  will  not,  and 
nmst  not  be  suffered  to,  let  die.  Cut  off  at  the  age  of 
thirty-six  by  that  union  of  misfortune  and  fault  (^SchicJc- 
sal  und  eigene  Schuld)  to  which  it  has  been  asserted 
that  all  human  miscarriages  are  imputable,  he  lived  long 
enough  to  show  that  he  was  one  of  the  few,  never  so 
few  as  in  these  latter  times,  who  seem  raised  up  to  turn 
the  balance  of  events  at  some  trying  moment  in  the 
history  of  nations,  and  to  have  or  to  want  whom,  at 
critical  periods,  is  the  salvation  or  the  destruction  of 
an  era. 

We  seize  the  opportunity  to  contribute  what  we  can, 
as  well  from  our  own  knowledge  as  from  the  materials 
supplied  by  MM.  Nisard  and  Littr^,  towards  a  true 
picture  of  a  man,  more  worthy  to  be  known,  and  more 
fit  to  be  imitated,  than  any  who  has  occupied  a  position 
in  European  politics  for  many  years.  It  has  not  been 
given  to  those  who  knew  Carrel  to  see  him  in  any  of 
those  situations  of  outward  power  and  honor  to  which 
he  would  certainly  have  forced  his  way,  and  which, 
instead  of  being  honors  to  Mm,  it  was  reserved  for  him 
perhaps  to  rescue  from  ignominy.     The  man  whona  not 

*  London  and  Westminster  Review,  October,  1837. 


238  AKtfAND   CARBEL. 

only  his  friends,  but  his  enemies,  and  all  France,  would 
have  proclaimed  President  or  Prime  ISIinister  with  one 
voice,  if  any  of  the  changes  of  this  changeable  time  had 
again  given  ascendency  to  the  people's  side,  is  gone ; 
and  his  place  is  not  likely  to  be  again  filled  in  our  time. 
But  there  is  left  to  us  his  memory  and  his  example.  We 
can  still  remember  and  meditate  on  what  he  was,  how 
much  and  under  how  great  disadvantages  he  accom- 
plished, and  what  he  would  have  been.  We  can  learn, 
from  the  study  of  him,  what  we  all,  but  especially  those 
of  kindred  principles  and  aspirations,  must  be,  if  we 
would  make  those  principles  effectual  for  good,  those 
aspirations  realities,  and  not  the  mere  dreams  of  an  idle 
and  self-conceited  imagination. 

"VVho,  then,  and  what,  was  Armand  Carrel?  "An 
editor  of  a  republican  newspaper ! "  exclaims  some 
English  Tory,  in  a  voice  in  which  it  is  doubtful  whether 
the  word  "  republican  "  or  "  newspaper  "  is  uttered  in  the 
most  scornful  intonation.  Carrel  teas  the  editor  of  a 
republican  newspaper  :  his  glory  consists  precisely  in 
this, — that  being  that,  and  by  being  that,  he  was  the 
greatest  political  leader  of  his  time.  And  we  do  not 
mean  by  a  political  leader  one  who  can  create  and  keep 
together  a  political  party,  or  who  can  give  it  importance 
in  the  State,  or  even  who  can  make  it  deserve  impor- 
tance, but  who  can  do  any  and  every  one  of  all  these, 
and  do  them  with  an  easy  superiority  of  genius  and 
character  which  renders  competition  hopeless.  Such 
was  Carrel.  Ripened  by  years,  and  favored  by  opportu- 
nity, he  might  have  been  the  Mirabeau  or  the  Washing- 
ton pf  his  age,  or  both  in  one. 

The  life  of  Carrel  mav  be  written  in  a  few  sentences. 


ARMAND    CARREL.  239 

'*Armand  Carrel,"  says  M.  Littr^,  "was  a  sub-lieuten- 
ant and  a  journalist :  in  that  narrow  circle  was  included 
the  life  of  a  man,  who,  dying  in  the  flower  of  youth, 
leaves  a  name  known  to  all  France,  and  lamented  even 
by  his  political  enemies.  His  celebrity  came  not  from 
the  favor  of  governments,  nor  from  those  elevated 
functions  which  give  an  easy  opportunity  of  acquiring 
distinction,  or,  at  the  least,  notoriety.  Implicated  in 
the  conspiracies  against  the  Restoration ;  an  officer  in  the 
service  of  the  Spanish  Constitution ;  taken  prisoner  in 
Catalonia,  and  condemned  to  death  ;  bold  in  the  opposi- 
tion before  the  July  Revolution,  still  bolder  after  it, — he 
was  always  left  to  his  own  resources,  so  as  never  to  pass 
for  more  than  his  intrinsic  worth.  Xo  borrowed  lustre 
was  ever  shed  on  him  :  he  had  no  station  but  that  which 
he  created  for  himself.  Fortune,  the  inexplicable 
chance  which  distributes  cannon-balls  in  a  battle,  and 
which  has  so  large  a  dominion  in  human  affairs,  did 
little  or  nothing  for  him  :  he  had  no  'star,'  no  'run  of 
luck  ; '  and  no  one  ever  was  less  the  product  of  favor- 
able circumstances  :  he  sought  them  not,  and  they  came 
not.  Force  of  character  in  difficult  times,  admirable 
talents  as  a  writer  at  all  times,  nobleness  of  soul  towards 
f^'iends  and  enemies,  — these  were  what  sustained  him, 
and  gave  him,  in  all  quarters  and  in  all  times,  not  only 
an  elevated  place  in  the  esteem  of  men,  but  an  ascend- 
ency over  them." 

Thus  far  M.  Littr^,  —  a  man  who  does  not  cast  his 
words  at  random,  —  a  witness,  whose  opinions  indeed 
are  those  of  Carrel,  but  whose  life  is  devoted  to  other 
pursuits  than  politics,  and  whose  simplicity  and  purity 
of  character,  esteemed  by  men  who  do  not  share  his 


240  ARMAND    CAKREL. 

opinions,  peculiarly  qualified  him  to  declare  of  Carrel 
that  which  the  best  men  in  France,  of  whatever  party  or 
shade  of  opinion,  feel.  M.  Nisard,  the  representative 
of  a  much  fainter  shade  of  liberalism  than  M.  Littrd, 
does  but  fill  up  the  same  outline  with  greater  richness 
of  detail,  with  the  addition  of  many  interesting  traits 
of  personal  character,  and  with  a  more  analytical  phi- 
losophy. From  the  two  together  we  have  learned  the 
facts  of  the  early  life  of  Carrel,  and  many  particulars 
of  his  habits  and  disposition  which  could  be  known 
only  to  familiar  companions.  On  the  great  features 
which  make  up  a  character,  they  show  us  almost  nothing 
in  Carrel  which  we  had  not  ourselves  seen  in  him  :  but, 
in  what  they  have  communicated,  we  find  all  those 
details  which  justify  our  general  idea  ;  and  their  recol- 
lections bear  to  our  own  the  natural  relation  between 
likenesses  of  the  same  figure  taken  from  different  points. 
We  can  therefore,  with  increased  confidence,  attempt  to 
describe  what  Carrel  was ;  what  the  world  has  lost  in 
him,  and  in  what  it  may  profit  by  his  example. 

The  circumstance  most  worthy  of  commenjoration  in 
Carrel  is,  not  that  he  was  an  unblemished  patriot  in  a 
time  of  general  political  corruption :  others  have  been 
that ;  others  are  so  even  at  present.  Nor  is  it  that  he 
was  the  first  political  writer  of  his  time  :  he  could  not 
have  been  this,  if  he  had  not  been  something  to  which 
his  character  as  a  writer  was  merely  subsidiary.  There 
are  no  great  writers  but  those  whose  qualities  as  wri- 
ters are  built  upon  their  qualities  as  human  beings,  — 
are  the  mere  manifestation  and  expression  of  those 
qualities  :  all  besides  is  hollow  and  meretricious  ;  and  if 
a  writer,  who  assumes  a  style  for  the  sake  of  style,  ever 


ARMAND    CARBEL.  241 

acquires  a  place  in  literature,  it  is  in  so  far  as  he 
assumes  the  style  of  those  whose  style  is  not  assumed ; 
of  those  to  whom  language  altogether  is  but  the  utter- 
ance of  their  feelings,  or  the  means  to  their  practical 
ends. 

Carrel  was  one  of  these ;  and  it  may  even  be  said, 
that  being  a  writer  was  to  him  merely  an  accident. 
He  was  neither  by  character  nor  by  preference  a  man 
of  speculation  and  discussion,  for  whom  the  press,  if 
still  but  a  means,  is  the  best,  and  often  the  sole,  means 
of  fulfilling  his  vocation.  The  career  of  an  administra- 
tor or  that  of  a  military  commander  would  have  been 
more  to  Carrel's  taste ;  and  in  either  of  them  he  would 
probably  have  excelled.  The  true  idea  of  Carrel  is,  not 
that  of  a  literary  man,  but  of  a  man  of  action,  using 
the  press  as  his  instrument ;  and  in  no  other  aspect  does 
his  character  deserve  more  to  be  studied  by  those  of  all 
countries  who  are  qualified  to  resemble  him . 

He  was  a  man  called  to  take  an  active  part  in  the 
government  of  mankind,  and  needing  an  engine  with 
which  to  move  them.  Had  his  lot  been  cast  in  the  cab- 
inet or  in  the  camp,  of  the  cabinet  or  of  the  camp  he 
would  have  made  his  instrument.  Fortune  did  not  give 
him  such  a  destiny,  and  his  principles  did  not  permit 
him  the  means  by  which  he  could  have  acquired  it. 
Thus  excluded  from  the  region  of  deeds,  he  had  still 
that  of  words  ;  and  words  are  deeds,  and  the  cause  of 
deeds.  Carrel  was  not  the  first  to  see,  but  he  was  the 
first  practically  to  realize,  the  new  destination  of  the 
political  press  in  modern  times.  It  is  now  beginning  to 
be  felt  that  journalism  is  to  modem  Europe  what  polit- 
ical  oratory  was  to  Athens   and  Rome ;   and  that,  to 

VOL.   I.  16 


242  ARMAND   CARREL. 

become  what  it  ought,  it  should  be  wielded  by  the  same 
sort  of  men.  Carrel  seized  the  sceptre  of  journalism, 
and  with  that,  as  with  the  bdton  of  a  general-in-chief, 
ruled  amidst  innumerable  difficulties  and  reverses  that 
"fierce  democracy,"  which  he  perhaps . alone  of  all  men 
living,  trampled  upon  and  irritated  as  it  has  been,  could 
have  rendered  at  once  gentle  and  powerful. 

Such  a  position  did  Carrel  occupy  for  a  few  short 
years  in  the  history  of  his  time.  A  brief  survey  of 
the  incidents  of  his  career,  and  the  circumstances  of  his 
country,  will  show  how  he  acquitted  himself  in  this  sit- 
uation. That  he  committed  no  mistakes  in  it,  we  are 
nowise  concerned  to  prove.  We  may  even,  with  the 
modesty  befitting  a  distant  observer,  express  our  opinion 
as  to  what  his  mistakes  were.  But  we  have  neither 
known  nor  read  of  any  man  of  whom  it  could  be  said 
with  assurance,  that  in  Carrel's  circumstances,  and  at 
his  years,  he  would  have  committed  fewer ;  and  we  are 
certain  that  there  have  been  none  whose  achievements 
would  have  been  greater,  or  whose  errors  nobler  or 
more  nobly  redeemed. 

Carrel  was  the  son  of  a  merchant  of  Rouen.  He 
was  intended  for  business ;  but  his  early  passion  for  a 
military  career  induced  his  father  (a  decided  royalist) 
to  send  him  to  the  Ecole  MUitaire  of  St.  Cyr.  "  His 
literary  studies,"  says  M.  Msard,  "were  much  neglected. 
He  himself  has  told  me,  that,  although  one  of  the  best 
scholars  in  capacity,  he  was  one  of  the  most  moderate 
in  attainment.  His  military  predilections  showed  them- 
selves, even  at  school,  in  the  choice  of  his  reading. 
His   favorite    authors    were    the    historians,    especially 


ARMAND    CARREL.  243 

where  they  treated  of  military  events.  All  other  studies 
he  was  impatient  of,  and  they  profited  him  little.  I  have 
heard  him  say,  however,  that  Virgil  made  an  impression 
on  hirh ;  and  he  has  sometimes  repeated  verses  to  me 
which  his  memory  had  retained  unforgotten,  though 
never  agrain  read.  .  .  .  After  leaving;  school,  and  while 
preparing  for  St.  Cyr,  he  directed  his  studies  exclu- 
sively to  history  and  the  strategic  art.  At  St.  Cyr,  he 
devoted  to  the  same  occupation  all  the  time  which  the 
duties  of  the  place  allowed  him."  On  leaving  St.  Cyr, 
he  entered  the  army  as  a  sub-lieutenant ;  the  grade 
answering  in  the  French  army  to  that  of  an  ensign  in 
the  English. 

In  this  early  direction  of  the  tastes  and  pursuits  of 
Carrel,  we  may  trace  the  cause  of  almost  his  only 
defects,  and  of  his  greatest  qualities.  From  it  he 
doubtless  derived  the  practicalness  (if  the  word  may 
be  pardoned)  in  which  the  more  purely  speculative 
Frenchmen  of  the  present  day  (constituting  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  most  accomplished  minds  of  our  age) ,  it 
may  be  said  without  disrespect  to  them,  are  generally 
deficient ;  and  of  which  in  England  we  have  too  much, 
with  but  little  of  the  nobler  quality,  which  in  Carrel  it 
served  to  temper  and  rein  in.  It  is  easy  to  be  practical 
in  a  society  all  practical.  There  is  a  practicalness  which 
comes  by  nature  to  those  who  know  little,  and  aspire  to 
nothing :  exactly  this  is  the  sort  which  the  vulgar  form 
of  the  English  mind  exemplifies,  and  which  all  the  Eng- 
lish institutions  of  education,  whatever  else  they  may 
teach,  are  studiously  conservative  of:  but  the  atmos- 
phere which  kills  so  much  thought,  sobers  what  it 
spares ;   and  the  English  who  think  at  all,  speculating 


244  ARMAND   CAREEL. 

under  the  restraining  influence  of  such  a  medium,  are 
guided,  more  often  than  the  thinkers  of  other  countries, 
into  the  practicalness,  which,  instead  of  chaining  up  the 
spirit  of  speculation,  lights  its  path,  and  makes  safe  its 
footsteps. 

What  is  done  for  the  best  English  thinkers,  by  the 
influences  of  the  society  in  which  they  grow  up,  was 
done  for  Carrel  by  the  inestimable  advantage  of  an 
education  and  pursuits  which  had  for  their  object,  not 
thinking  or  talking,  but  doing.  He  who  thinks  without 
any  experience  in  action,  or  without  having  action  per- 
petually in  view  ;  whose  mind  has  never  had  any  thing 
to  do  but  to  form  conceptions,  without  ever  measuring 
itself  or  them  with  realities,  —  maybe  a  great  man: 
thoughts  may  originate  with  him,  for  which  the  world 
may  bless  him  to  the  latest  generations.  There  ought 
to  be  such  men ;  for  they  see  many  things  which  even 
wise  and  strong  minds,  which  are  engrossed  with  active 
life,  never  can  be  the  first  to  see.  But  the  man  to  lead 
his  age  is  he  who  has  been  familiar  with  thought 
directed  to  the  accomplishment  of  immediate  objects, 
and  who  has  been  accustomed  to  see  his  theories  brought 
early  and  promptly  to  the  test  of  experiment ;  the  man 
Avho  has  seen,  at  the  end  of  every  theorem  to  be  inves- 
tigated, a  problem  to  be  solved  ;  who  has  learned  early 
to  weigh  the  means  which  can  be  exerted  against  the 
obstacles  which  are  to  be  overcome,  and  to  make  an 
estimate  of  means  and  of  obstacles  habitually  a  part  of 
all  his  theories  that  have  for  their  object  practice,  either 
at  the  present  or  at  a  more  distant  period.  This  was 
essentially  Carrel's  distinguishing  character  among  the 
popular  party  in  his  own  country ;  and  it  is  a  side  of 


ARMAND   CARREL.  245 

liis  character,  which,  naturally  perhaps,  has  hardly  yet 
been  enough  appreciated  in  France.  In  it  he  resembled 
Napoleon,  who  had  learnt  it  in  the  same  school,  and 
who  by  it  mastered  and  ruled,  as  far  as  so  selfish  a  man 
could,  his  country  and  age.  But  Napoleon's  really  nar- 
row and  imperfectly  cultivated  mind,  and  his  peremptory 
will,  turned  aside  contemptuously  from  all  speculation, 
and  all  attempt  to  stand  up  for  speculation,  as  bavard- 
age.  Carrel,  born  at  a  more  fortunate  time,  and  belong- 
ing to  a  generation  whose  best  heads  and  hearts  war 
and  the  guillotine  had  not  swept  away,  had  an  intellect 
capacious  enough  to  appreciate  and  sympathize  with 
whatever  of  truth  and  ultimate  value  to  mankind  there 
might  be  in  all  theories,  together  with  a  rootedly  practi- 
cal turn  of  mind,  which  seized  and  appropriated  to  itself 
such  part  only  of  them  as  might  be  realized,  or  at  least 
might  be  hoped  to  be  realized,  in  his  own  day.  As  with 
all  generous  spirits,  his  hopes  sometimes  deceived  him 
as  to  what  his  country  was  ripe  for ;  but  a  short  experi- 
ence always  corrected  his  mistake,  and  warned  him  to 
point  his  efforts  towards  some  more  attainable  end. 
'  Carrel  entered  into  life,  and  into  a  military  life,  at 
a  peculiar  period.  By  foreign  force,  and  under  cir- 
cumstances humiliating  to  the  military  pride  of  the 
nation,  the  Bourbons  had  been  brought  back.  AYith 
them  had  returned  the  emigrants  with  their  feudal 
prejudices,  the  ultra-Catholics  with  their  bigotry  and 
pretensions  to  priestly  domination.  Louis  XVIII., 
taking  the  advice  of  Fouchd,  though  in  a  different 
sense  from  that  in  wliich  it  was  given,  had  lain  down 
in  the  bed  of  Napoleon, — "s'^tait  couch^  dans  les  draps 
de  Napoleon ; "    had  preserved  that  vast   network  of 


246  AEMAND   CARREL. 

administrative  tyranny  which  did  not  exist  under  the 
old  French  Government,  which  the  Convention  created 
for  a  temporary  purpose,  and  which  Napoleon  made 
permanent ;  that  system  of  bureaucracy,  which  leaves 
no  free  agent  in  all  France,  except  the  man  at  Paris 
who  pulls  the  wires ;  which  regulates  from  a  distance 
of  several  hundred  miles  the  repairing  of  a  shed  or  the 
cutting-down  of  a  tree ;  and  allows  not  the  people  to 
stir  a  finger  even  in  their  local  affairs,  except  indeed 
by  such  writing  and  printing  as  a  host  of  restrictive 
laws  permitted  to  them ;  and  (if  they  paid  three  hun- 
dred francs  or  upwards  in  direct  taxes)  by  electing  and 
sending  to  Paris  the  two  hundredth  or  three  hundredth 
fractional  part  of  a  representative,  there  to  vote  such 
things  as  the  charter  of  Louis  XVIII.  placed  within 
the  competency  of  the  national  council.  That  charter, 
extorted  from  the  prudence  of  Louis  by  the  necessities 
of  the  times,  and  "broken  ere  its  ink  was  dried,"  alone 
stood  between  France  and  a  dark,  soul -stifling  and 
mind-stifling  despotism,  combining  some  of  the  worst 
of  the  evils  which  the  Revolution  and  Napoleon  had 
cleared  away,  with  the  worst  of  those  which  they  had 
brought. 

By  a  combination  of  good  sense  and  folly,  of  which 
it  is  difficult  to  say  which  was  most  profitable  to  the 
cause  of  freedom,  the  Bourbons  saw  the  necessity  of 
giving  a  representative  constitution,  but  not  that  of 
allying  themselves  with  the  class  in  whose  hands  that 
constitution  had  placed  so  formidable  a  power.  They 
would  have  found  them  tractable  enough :  witness  the 
present  ruler  of  France,  who  has  "lain  down  in  the 
sheets  of  Napoleon  "  with  considerably  more  effect.    The" 


ARMAND   CARKEL.  247 

Constitution  of  1814,  like  that  of  1830  which  followed 
it,  gave  a  share  of  the  governing  power  exclusively  to 
the  rich :  if  the  Bourbons  would  but  have  allied  them- 
selves with  the  majority  of  the  rich,  instead  of  the 
minority,  they  would  have  been  on  the  tlu-one  now,  and 
with  as  absolute  a  power  as  any  of  their  predecessors, 
so  long  as  they  conformed  to  that  condition.  But  they 
would  not  do  it :  they  would  not  see  that  the  only  aris- 
tocracy possible  in  a  wealthy  community  is  an  aristocracy 
of  wealth.  Louis  during  the  greater  part  of  his  reign, 
and  Charles  during  the  whole  of  his,  bestowed  exclu- 
sively upon  the  classes  which  had  been  powerful  once, 
those  favors,  which,  had  they  been  shared  with  the 
classes  which  were  powerful  now,  would  have  rendered 
the  majority  of  those  classes  the  most  devoted  adhe- 
rents of  the  throne.  For  the  sake  of  classes  who  had 
no  longer  the  principal  weight  in  the  country,  and 
whose  power  was  associated  with  the  recollections  of 
all  which  the  country  most  detested,  the  Bourbons  not 
only  slighted  the  new  aristocracy,  but  kept  both  them 
and  the  people  in  perpetual  alarm,  both  for  whatever 
was  dearest  to  them  in  the  institutions  which  the  Revo- 
lution had  given,  and  which  had  been  cheaply  purchased 
by  the  sacrifice  of  a  whole  generation,  and  even  for  the 
"  material  interests "  (such  as  those  of  the  possessors 
of  national  property)  which  had  grown  out  of  the  Rev- 
olution, and  were  identified  with  it.  The  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  therefore,  or,  as  it  might  have  been  called, 
the  new  Estate  of  the  Rich,  worked  like  the  Comitia 
Centuriata  of  the  Roman  Commonwealth,  which,  in 
this  respect,  it  resembled.  Like  the  Comitia  Centuriata, 
it  was,  from  the  principle  of  its  constitution,  the  organ 


248  ARMAND    CARREL. 

of  the  rich ;  and,  like  that,  it  served  as  an  organ  for 
popular  purposes  so  long  as  the  predominant  section 
of  the  rich,  being  excluded  from  a  direct  share  in  the 
government,  had  a  common  interest  with  the  people. 
This  result  might  have  been  foreseen  ;  but  the  Bourbons 
either  did  not  foresee  it,  or  thought  themselves  strong 
enough  to  prevent  it. 

At  the  time,  however,  when  Carrel  first  entered  into 
life,  any  one  might  have  been  excused  for  thinking  that 
the  Bourbons,  if  they  had  made  a  bad  calculation  for  the 
ultimate  duration  of  their  dynasty,  had  made  a  good 
one  for  its  present  interests.  They  had  put  down,  with 
triumphant  success,  a  first  attempt  at  resistance  by  the 
new  aristocracy. 

A  Chamber  of  furious  royalists,  elected  immediately 
after  the  second  Restoration  (afterwards  with  affec- 
tionate remembi'ance  called  the  chambre  introuvahle, 
from  the  impossibility  of  ever  again  getting  a  similar 
one),  had  sanctioned  or  tolerated  excesses  against  the 
opposite  party,  worthy  only  of  the  most  sanguinary 
times  of  the  Revolution  ;  and  had  carried  their  enter- 
prises in  behalf  of  feudalism  and  bigotry  to  a  pitch 
of  rashness,  by  which  Louis,  who  was  no  fanatic,  was 
seriously  alarmed:  and  in  September,  1817,  amidst 
the  applauses  of  all  France,  he  dissolved  the  Chamber, 
and  called  to  his  councils  a  semi-liberal  ministry.  The 
indignation  and  alarm  excited  by  the  conduct  of  the 
royalists  produced  a  re-action  among  the  classes  pos- 
sessed of  property  in  favor  'of  liberalism.  By  the  law 
as  it  then  stood,  a  fifth  part  of  the  Chamber  went  out 
every  year:  the  elections  in  1818  produced  hardly  any 
but  liberals ;  those  in  1819  did  the  same  ;  and  those  of 


ARMAND    CARREL.  -  249 

1820,  it  was  evident,  would  give  the  liberal  party  a 
majority.  The  electoral  body  too,  as,  fortunately, 
electoral  bodies  are  wont,  had  not  confined  its  choice  to 
men  who  represented  exactly  its  own  interests  and  sen- 
timents, but  had  mingled  with  them  the  ablest  and 
most  honored  of  its  temporary  allies,  the  defenders  of 
the  "good  old  cause."  The  new  aristocracy  could  still 
hear,  and  not  repudiate,  the  doctrines  of  1789,  pro- 
nounced, with  the  limitations  dictated  by  experience, 
from  the  eloquent  lips  of  Foy  and  Benjamin  Constant 
and  Manuel.  It  could  still  patronize  a  newspaper-press, 
free  for  the  first  time  since  1792,  which  raised  its  voice 
for  those  doctrines,  and  for  an  interpretation  of  the 
charter  in  the  spirit  of  them.  Even  among  the  moneyed 
classes  themselves,  there  arose,  as  in  all  aristocracies 
there  will,  some  men  whose  talents  or  sympathies  make 
them  the  organs  of  a  better  cause  than  that  of  aris- 
tocracy. Casimir  P^rier  had  not  yet  sunk  the  defender 
of  the  people  in  the  defender  of  his  counting-house ; 
and  Laflitte  was  then  what  he  is  still,  and  will  be 
to  the  end  of  his  disinterested  and  generous  career. 
Among  the  new  members  of  the  legislature  there  was 
even  found  the  Abbd  Gregoire,  one  of  the  worthiest 
and  most  respected  characters  in  France,  but  a  con- 
spicuous member  of  the  Montagne  party  in  the  Conven- 
tion.* 

This  rapid  progress  of  the  popular  party  to  ascend- 
ency was  not  what  Louis  had  intended :    he  wished  to 

*  He  has  been  called  a  regicide:  had  the  assertion  been  true,  it  was 
equally  true  of  Camot  and  many  others  of  the  noblest  characters  in 
France;  but  the  fact  was  otherwise.  Gregoire  was  absent  on  a  mission 
during  the  trial  of  Louis  XVI.,  and  associated  himself  by  letter  with  the 
verdict,  but  not  with  the  sentence. 


250  AKMiVND    CARREL. 

keep  the  liberals  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  priestly  party ; 
but  it  never  entered  into  his  purposes  that  they  should 
predominate  in  the  legislature.  His  "  systeme  de  bas- 
cule" literally  system  of  see-satv,  of  playing  off  one 
party  against  another,  and  maintaining  his  influence  by 
throwing  it  always  into  the  scale  of  the  weakest,  re- 
quired that  the  next  move  should  be  to  the  royalist 
side.  Demonstrations  were  therefore  made  towards  a 
modification  of  the  electoral  law,  — to  take  effect  while 
the  anti-popular  party  had  still  a  majority,  before  the 
dreaded  period  of  the  next  annual  elections.  At  this 
crisis,  when  the  fate  of  parties  hung  trembling  in  the 
balance,  the  Due  de  Berri,  heir  presumptive  to  the 
throne,  fell  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin.  This  catastro- 
phe, industriously  imputed  to  the  renewed  propagation 
of  revolutionary  principles,  excited  general  horror  and 
alarm.  The  new  aristocracy  recoUed  from  their  alli- 
ance with  liberalism.  The  crime  of  Louvel  was  as 
serviceable  to  the  immediate  objects  of  those  against 
whom  it  was  perpetrated  as  the  crime  of  Fieschi  has 
been  since.  A  change  of  ministry  took  place ;  laws 
were  passed  restrictive  of  the  press  ;  and  a  law,  which, 
while  it  kept  within  the  letter  of  the  charter  by  not 
disfranchising  any  of  the  electors,  created  within  the 
electoral  body  a  smaller  body,  returning  an  additional 
number  of  representatives.  The  elections  which  took 
place  in  consequence  gave  a  decided  majority  to  the 
feudal  and  priestly  party ;  an  ultra-royalist  ministry 
was  appointed;  and  the  triumph  of  the  retrogrades, 
the  party  of  ancient  privileges,  seemed  assured. 

It  is  incident  to  a  country  accustomed  to  a  state  of 
revolution,  that  the  party  which  is  defeated  by  peaceful 


I 


ARMAND    CARKEL.  251 

means  will  try  violent  ones.  The  popular  party  in 
France  was  now  in  a  similar  situation  to  the  popular 
party  in  England  during  the  royalist  re-action  which  fol- 
lowed the  dissolution  of  the  last  Parliament  of  Charles 
II.  Like  them,  they  had  recourse  to  what  Carrel 
afterwards,  in  his  "History  of  the  Counter-Revolution 
in  England,"  called  "the  refuge  of  weak  parties,"  con- 
spiracy. The  military  revolutions  in  Spain,  Portugal, 
and  Naples,  had  inspired  many  ardent  spirits  in  France 
wdth  a  desire  to  follow  the  example :  from  1820  to 
1822,  Carbonaro  societies  spread  themselves  over  France, 
and  military  conspiracies  continually  broke  out,  and 
were  suppressed.  It  would  have  been  sui-prising  if 
Carrel,  whose  favorite  heroes,  even  at  school,  were 
Hoche,  Marceau,  and  Kldber,  whose  democratic  opin- 
ions had  attracted  the  notice  of  his  superiors  at  St.  Cyr, 
and  to  whose  youthful  aspirations  no  glory  attainable  to 
him  appeared  equal  to  that  of  the  successful  general  of 
a  liberating  army,  had  not  been  implicated  in  some 
of  these  conspiracies.  Like  almost  all  the  bravest  and 
most  patriotic  of  the  young  men  in  his  rank  of  society 
entertaining  liberal  opinions,  he  paid  his  tribute  to  the 
folly  of  the  day ;  and  he  had  a  narrow  escape  from 
discovery,  of  which  M.  Littre  gives  the  following  narra- 
tive :  — 

"  Carrel  was  a  sub-lieutenant  in  the  twenty-ninth  of 
the  line  in  1821,  when  conspiracies  were  forming  in 
every  quarter  against  the  Restoration.  The  twenty- 
ninth  was  in  garrison  at  Befort  and  New  Brisach. 
Carrel  was  quartered  in  the  latter  place.  He  was  en- 
gaged in  the  plot  since  called  the  conspiracy  of  Befort. 
The  officers  at  New  Brisach  who  were  in    the    secret 


252  AKMAND    CARREL. 

were  discouraged  by  repeated  delays,  and  would  not 
stir  until  the  insurrection  should  have  exploded  at  Bd- 
fort.  It  was  indispensable,  however,  that  they  should 
move  as  soon  as  the  blow  should  have  been  successfully 
struck  in  the  latter  place.  The  Grand  Lodge  (of  Car- 
bonari) had  sent  from  Paris  several  conspirators  :  one 
of  them,  M.  Joubert,  had  come  to  New  Brisach  to  see 
what  was  to  be  done.  Carrel  offered  to  go  with  him  to 
Bdfort,  to  join  in  the  movement,  and  bring  back  the 
news  to  New  Brisach.  Both  set  off,  and  arrived  at 
B^fort  towards  midnight.  The  plot  had  been  discov- 
ered ;  several  persons  had  been  arrested ;  the  conspira- 
tors were  dispersed.  Carrel  rode  back  to  New  Brisach 
at  full  gallop,  and  arrived  early  in  the  morning.  He 
had  time  to  return  to  his  quarters,  put  on  his  uniform, 
and  attend  the  morning  exercise,  without  any  one's 
suspecting  that  he  had  been  out  all  night.  When  an 
inquiry  was  set  on  foot  to  discover  the  accomplices  of 
the  B^fort  conspirators,  and  especially  to  find  who  it 
was  that  had  gone  thither  from  New  Brisach,  nothing 
could  be  discovered  ;  and  suspicion  rested  upon  any  one 
rather  than  Carrel,  for  his  careless  levity  of  manner  had 
made  his  superiors  consider  him  a  man  quite  unlikely  to 
be  engaged  in  plots." 

Nine  years  later,  M.  Joubert  was  heading  the  party 
which  stormed  the  Louvre  on  the  29th  of  July ;  and 
Carrel  had  signed  the  protest  of  the  forty-two  journal- 
ists, and  given,  by  an  article  in  the  "National,"  the 
first  signal  of  resistance.  This  is  not  the  only  instance 
in  the  recent  history  of  France,  when,  as  during  the 
first  French  Revolution,  names  lost  sight  of  for  a  time 
meet  us  again  at  the  critical  moments. 


ARMAND    CARREL.  253 

These  attempts  at  Insurrection  did  the  Bourbons  no 
damage,  but  caused  them  some  uneasiness  with  regard 
to  the  fidelity  of  the  army.  The  counter-revolutionary 
party,  however,  was  now  under  the  conduct  of  the  only 
man  of  judgment  and  sagacity  who  has  appeared  in 
that  party  since  the  Revolution,  —  M.  de  Villele.  This 
minister  adopted  (though,  it  is  said,  with  misgiving 
and  reluctance)  the  bold  idea  of  conquering  the  dis- 
aifection  of  the  army  by  sending  it  to  fight  against  its 
principles.  He  knew,  that,  with  men  in  the  position 
and  in  the  state  of  feeling  in  which  it  was,  all  depended 
on  the  first  step  ;  and  thati  if  it  could  but  be  induced  to 
fire  one  shot  for  the  drapeau  blanc  against  the  tricolore^ 
its  implicit  obedience  might  be  reckoned  on  for  a  long 
time  to  come.  Accordingly,  constitutional  France  took 
the  field  against  constitutional  government  in  Spain,  as 
constitutional  England  had  done  before  in  France,  in 
order  that  Ferdinand  (save  thS  mark  !)  might  be  restored 
to  the  enjoyment  of  liberty  ;  and  the  history  of  the 
campaign  by  which  he  was  restored  to  it  furnishes  a 
curious  picture  of  a  victorious  army  putting  down  by 
force  those  with  whom  it  sympathized,  and  protecting 
them  against  the  vengeance  of  allies  whom  it  despised 
and  detested. 

At  this  period,  political  refugees,  and  other  ardent 
lovers  of  freedom,  especially  military  men,  flocked  to 
the  Spanish  standard ;  even  England,  as  it  may  be 
remembered,  contributing  her  share,  in  the  persons  of 
Sir  Robert  Wilson  and  others.  Carrel,  already  obnox- 
ious, by  his  opinions,  to  his  superior  officers,  and  now 
placed  between  the  dictates  of  his  conscience  and  those 
of  military  discipline,   acted  like  Major  Cartwright  at 


254  ARMAND    CARREL. 

the  opening  of  the  American  war :  he  threw  up  his 
commission,  rather  than  fight  in  a  cause  he  abhorred. 
Having  done  this,  he  did  what  Major  Cartwright  did 
not :  he  joined  the  opposite  party,  passed  over  to 
Barcelona  in  a  Spanish  fishing-boat,  and  took  service  in 
the  "foreign  liberal  legion,"  commanded  by  a  distin- 
guished oflficer,  —  Col.  Pachiarotti,  an  Italian  exile. 

We  shall  not  trace  Carrel  through  the  vicissitudes 
of  this  campaign,  which  was  full  of  hardships,  and 
abounded  in  incidents  honorable  to  him  both  as  an  oflfi- 
cer and  as  a  man.  It  is  well  known,  that  in  Catalonia 
the  invading  army  experienced  from  Mina,  Milans,  and 
their  followers,  almost  the  only  vigorous  resistance  it 
had  to  encounter ;  and,  in  this  resistance,  the  foreign 
legion,  in  which  Carrel  served,  bore  a  conspicuous  part. 
Carrel  himself  has  sketched  the  history  of  the  contest  in 
two  articles  in  the  "Revue  Fran^aise,"  much  remarked 
at  the  time  for  their  impartiality  and  statesmanlike 
views,  and  which  first  established  his  reputation  as  a 
writer. 

In  September,  1823,  the  gallant  Pachiarotti  had 
already  fallen  ;  supported  on  horseback  by  Carrel  during 
a  long  retreat  after  he  was  mortally  wounded,  and 
recommending  with  his  dying  breath,  to  the  good  oflS- 
cers  of  the  persons  present,  ce  brave  et  noble  jeune 
homme.  What  remained  of  the  legion,  after  having 
had,  in  an  attempt  to  relieve  Figueras,  two  desperate 
encounters  with  superior  force  at  Llado  and  Llers,  in 
which  it  lost  half  its  numbers,  capitulated  ;*  and  Carrel 

•  M.  de  Chi^vres,  aide-de-camp  of  M.  de  Damas,  was  the  officer  through 
whose  exertions,  mainly,  terms  were  granted  to  the  legion ;  and  Carrel,  who 
never  forgot  generosity  in  an  enemy,  was  able,  by  the  manner  in  which  he 


ARMAND    CARREL.  255 

became  the  prisoner  of  his  former  commanding  officer, 
the  Baron  de  Damas.  As  a  condition  of  the  surrender, 
M.  de  Damas  pledged  himself  to  use  his  utmost  exer- 
tions for  obtaining  the  pardon  of  all  the  French  who 
were  included  in  the  capitulation.  Though  such  a 
pledge  was  formally  binding  only  on  the  officer  who 
gave  it,  no  government  could  without  infamy  have 
refused  to  fulfil  its  conditions ;  least  of  all  the  French 
cabinet,  of  which  M.  de  Damas  almost  immediately 
afterwards  became  a  member.  But  the  rancor  which 
felt  itself  restrained  from  greater  acts  of  vindictiveness, 
with  characteristic  littleness,  took  refuge  in  smaller 
ones.  Contrary  to  the  express  promise  of  M.  de 
Damas  (on  whose  individual  honor,  however,  no  impu- 
tation appears  to  rest),  and  in  disregard  of  the  fact 
that  Carrel  had  ceased  to  be  a  member  of  the  army 
before  he  committed  any  act  contrary  to  its  laws,  the 
prisoners,  both  officers  and  soldiers,  Avere  thrown  into 
jail ;  and  Carrel  was  among  the  first  selected  to  be 
tried  by  military  law  before  a  military  tribunal.  The 
first  court-martial  declared  itself  incompetent.  A  sec- 
ond was  appointed,  and  ordered  to  consider  itself  com- 
petent. By  this  second  court-martial  he  was  found 
guilty,  and  sentenced  to  death.  He  appealed  to  a 
superior  court,  which  annulled  the  sentence  on  purely 
technical  grounds.  The  desire  of  petty  vengeance  was 
now  somewhat  appeased.  After  about  nine  months  of 
rigorous  and  unwholesome  confinement,  which  he  em- 


related  the  circumstance,  to  do  important  service  to  M.  de  Chifevres  at  a 
later  period,  when  on  trial  for  his  life  upon  a  charge  of  conspiracy  against 
the  government  of  Louis  Philippe.  The  particulars  are  in  M.  Littrd's 
narrative. 


256  ARMAND    CARREL. 

ployed  in  diligent  studies,  chiefly  historical.  Carrel  was 
brought  a  third  time  to  trial  before  a  third  court-mar- 
tial, and  acquitted ;  and  was  once  again,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-four,  turned  loose  upon  the  world. 

After  some  hesitations,  and  a  struggle  between  the 
wishes  of  his  family,  which  pointed  to  a  counting-house, 
and  his  own  consciousness  of  faculties  suited  for  a 
different  sphere,  he  became  secretary  to  M.  Augustin 
Thierry ;  one  of  that  remarkable  constellation  of  cotem- 
porary  authors  who  have  placed  France  at  the  head  of 
modem  historical  literature.  Carrel  assisted  M.  Thierry 
(whose  sight,  since  totally  lost,  had  already  been  weak- 
ened by  his  labors)  in  collecting  the  materials  for  the 
concluding  volume  of  his  longest  work,  —  "  The  History 
of  the  Conquest  of  England  by  the  Normans  ;  "  and  it 
was  by  M.  Thierry's  advice  that  Carrel  determined  to 
make  literature  his  profession.  M.  Nisard  gives  an 
interesting  account  of  the  manner  in  which  the  doubts 
and  anxieties  of  Carrel's  mother  gave  way  before  the 
authority  of  M.  Thierry's  reputation  :  — 

"  During  this  period,  Carrel's  mother  made  a  journey  to 
Paris.  M.  Thierry's  letters  had  not  removed  her  uneasiness : 
the  humble  life  of  a  man  of  letters  did  not  give  her  confi- 
dence, and  did  not  seem  to  be  particularly  flattering  to  her. 
She  needed  that  M.  Thierry  should  renew  his  former  assu- 
rances, and  should,  in  a  manner,  stand  surety  for  the  literary 
capacity  and  for  the  future  success  of  her  son.  At  two 
different  meetings  with  M.  Thierry,  she  made  a  direct  appeal 
to  him  to  that  effect.  '  Vous  croyez  done,  monsieur,  que 
mon  fils  fait  bien,  et  qu'il  aura  une  carriere  ? '  — '  Je  reponds 
de  lui,'  answered  M.  Thierry,  '  comme  de  moi-meme ;  j'ai 
quelqu'  experience  des  vocations  litteraires :  votre  fils  a  toutes 
les   qualites    qui  reussissent   aujourd'hui.'      While    he    thus 


ARMAND    CARREL.  257 

spoke,  Madame  Carrel  fixed  upon  liim  a  penetrating  look,  as 
if  to  distinguish  what  was  the  prompting  of  truth  from  what 
might  be  the  effect  of  mere  poHteness,  and  a  desire  to 
encourage.  The  young  man  himself  listened  in  respectful 
silence,  submissive,  and,  according  to  M.  Thierry,  almost 
timid,  before  his  mother,  whose  decision,  and  firmness  of  mind, 
had  gi-eat  sway  over  him.  Carrel,  in  this,  bowed  only  to  his 
own  qualities :  what  awed  him  in  his  mother  was  the  quality 
by  which  afterwards,  as  a  public  man,  he  himself  overawed 
others.  The  first  meeting  had  left  Madame  Carrel  still  doubt- 
ful. M.  Thierry,  pressed  between  two  inflexible  wills,  —  the 
mother  requiring  of  him  almost  to  become  personally  respon- 
sible for  her  son,  the  son  silently  but  in  intelligible  language 
pledging  himself  that  the  guaranty  should  not  be  forfeited,  — 
had  doubtless,  at  the  second  meeting,  expressed  himself  still 
more  positively.  Madame  Carrel  returned  to  Rouen  less 
uneasy,  and  more  convinced." 

Here,  then,  closes  the  first  period  of  the  life  of  Car- 
rel ;  and  the  second  —  that  of  his  strictly  literary  life 
—  begins.  This  lasted  till  the  foundation  of  the  "Na- 
tional," a  few  months  before  the  Revolution  of  July. 

The  period  of  six  years,  of  which  we  have  now  to 
speak,  formed  the  culminating  point  of  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  developments  of  the  French  national  mind,  — 
a  development,  which,  for  intensity  and  rapidity,  and,  if 
not  for  duration,  for  the  importance  of  its  durable  con- 
sequences, has  not  many  parallels  in  history.  A  large 
income  not  being  in  France,  for  persons  in  a  certain 
rank  of  society,  a  necessary  of  life,  and  the  pursuit  of 
money  being  therefore  not  so  engrossing  an  object  as  it 
is  here,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  whole  of  the 
most  gifted  young  men  of  a  generation  from  devoting 

VOL.  I.  17  ' 


258  ARMAND   CARREL. 

themselves  to  literature  or  science,  if  favorable  circum- 
stances combine  to  render  it  fashionable  to  do  so.  Such 
a  conjuncture  of  circumstances  was  presented  by  the 
state  of  France,  at  the  time  when  the  Spanish  war  and 
its  results  seemed  to  have  riveted  on  the  necks  of  the 
French  people  the  yoke  of  the  feudal  and  sacerdotal 
party  for  many  years  to  come.  The  Chamber  was 
closed  to  all  under  the  age  of  forty;  and  besides,  at 
this  particular  period,  the  law  of  partial  renewal  had 
been  abrogated,  a  septennial  act  had  been  passed,  and  a 
general  election,  at  the  height  of  the  Spanish  triumph, 
had  left  but  sixteen  liberals  in  the  whole  Chamber  of 
Deputies.  The  army,  in  a  time  of  profound  peace, 
officered,  too,  by  the  detested  Smigres,  held  out  no 
attraction.  Repelled  from  politics,  in  which  little  pre- 
ferment could  be  hoped  for  by  a  7'oturier,  and  that  little 
at  a  price  which  a  Frenchman  will,  least  of  all,  consent 
to  pay, — religious  hypocrisy,  —  the  f'lite  of  the  edu- 
cated youth  of  France  precipitated  themselves  into  lit- 
erature and  philosophy,  and  remarkable  results  soon 
became  evident. 

The  national  intellect  seemed  to  make  a  sudden  stride 
from  the  stage  of  adolescence  to  that  of  early  maturity. 
It  had  reached  the  era  corresponding  to  that  in  the  his- 
tory of  an  individual  mind,  when,  after  having  been 
taught  to  think  (as  every  one  is)  by  teachers  of  some 
particular  school,  and  having  for  a  time  exercised  the 
power  only  in  the  path  shown  to  it  by  its  first  teachers, 
it  begins,  without  abandoning  that,  to  tread  also  in 
other  paths  ;  learns  to  see  with  its  naked  eyes,  and  not 
through  the  eye-glasses  of  its  teachers  ;  and,  from  being 
one-sided,  becomes  many-sided,  and  of  no  school.     The 

\ 


ARMAND    CARREL.  259 

French  nation  had  had  two  great  epochs  of  intellectual 
development.  It  had  been  taught  to  speak  by  the  great 
writers  of  the  seventeenth  century,  —  to  think  by  the 
philosophers  of  the  eighteenth.  The  present  became 
the  era  of  re-action  against  the  narrownesses  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  as  well  as  against  those  narrow- 
nesses of  another  sort  which  the  eighteenth  century  had 
left.  The  stateliness  and  conventional  decorum  of  old 
French  poetic  and  dramatic  literature  gave  place  to  a 
license  which  made  free  scope  for  genius,  and  also  for 
absurdity,  and  let  in  new  forms  of  the  beautiful  as  well 
as  many  of  the  hideous.  Literature  shook  off  its 
chains,  and  used  its  liberty  like  a  galley-slave  broke 
loose  ;  while  painting  and  sculpture  passed  from  one 
unnatural  extreme  to  another,  and  the  stiff  school  was 
succeeded  by  the  spasmodic.  This  insurrection  against 
the  old  traditions  of  classicism  was  called,  romanticism  ; 
and  now,  when  the  mass  of  rubbish  to  which  it  had 
given  birth  has  produced  another  oscillation  in  opinion 
the  reverse  way,  one  inestimable  result  seems  to  have 
survived  it,  —  that  life  and  human  feeling  may  now,  in 
France,  be  painted  with  as  much  liberty  as  they  may  be 
discussed,  and,  when  painted  truly,  with  approval;  as 
by  George  Sand,  and  in  the  best  writings  of  Balzac. 
While  this  revolution  was  going  on  in  the  artistic 
departments  of  literature,  that  in  the  scientific  depart- 
ments was  still  more  important.  There  was  re-action 
against  the  metaphysics  of  Condillac  and  Helvetius ; 
and  some  of  the  most  eloquent  men  in  France  imported 
Kantism  from  Germany,  and  Reidism  from  Scotland, 
to  oppose  to  it,  and  listening  crowds  applauded,  and  an 
"  eclectic  philosophy  "  was  formed.     There  was  re-action 


260  ARMAND   CARREL. 

against  the  irreligion  of  Diderot  and  d'Holbach ;  and 
by  the  side  of  their  irreligious  philosophy  there  grew  up 
religious  philosophies,  and  philosophies  prophesying  a 
religion,  and  a  general  vague  feeling  of  religion,  and 
a  taste  for  reli"rious  ideas.  There  was  re-action  ajjainst 
the  premises,  rather  than  against  the  conclusions,  of 
the  political  philosophy  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  : 
men  found  out,  that  underneath  all  political  philosophy 
there  must  be  a  social  philosophy,  —  a  study  of  agencies 
lying  deeper  than  forms  of  government,  which,  working 
through  forms  of  government,  produce,  in  the  long-run, 
most  of  what  these  seem  to  produce,  and  which  sap  and 
destroy  all  forms  of  government  that  lie  across  their 
path.  Thus  arose  the  new  political  philosophy  of  the 
present  generation  in  France  ;  which,  considered  merely 
as  a  portion  of  science,  may  be  pronounced  greatly  in 
advance  of  all  the  other  political  philosophies  which  had 
yet  existed,  —  a  philosophy  rather  scattered  among 
many  minds  than  concentrated  in  one,  but  furnishing  a 
storehouse  of  ideas  to  those  who  meditate  on  politics, 
such  as  all  ages  and  nations  could  not  furnish  previously  ; 
and  inspiring  at  the  same  time  more  comprehensive,  and 
therefore  more  cautious,  views  of  the  past  and  present, 
and  far  bolder  aspirations  and  anticipations  for  the 
future.  It  would  be  idle  to  hold  up  any  particular  book 
as  a  complete  specimen  of  this  philosophy :  different 
minds,  according  to  their  capacities  or  their  tendencies, 
have  struck  out  or  appropriated  to  themselves  different 
portions  of  it,  which  as  yet  have  only  been  partially 
harmonized  and  fitted  into  one  another.  But  if  we  were 
asked  for  the  book,  which,  up  to  the  present  time,  em- 
bodies the  largest  portion  of  the  spirit,  and  is,  in  the 


AEMAND    CARREL.  261 

French  phrase,  the  highest  expression  of  this  new  polit- 
ical philosophy,  we  should  point  to  the  "  Democracy  in 
America,"  by  ]\I.  de  Tocqueville. 

It  was  above  all,  however,  in  history,  and  historical 
disquisition,  that  the  new  tendencies  of  the  national 
mind  made  themselves  way.  And  a  fact  may  be 
remarked,  which  strikingly  illustrates  the  difference 
between  the  French  and  the  English  mind,  and  the 
rapidity  with  which  an  idea,  thrown  into  French  soil, 
takes  root,  and  blossoms  and  fructifies.  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  romances  have  been  read  by  every  educated 
person  in  Great  Britain  who  has  grown  up  to  manhood 
or  womanhood  in  the  last  twenty  years ;  and  except 
the  memory  of  much  pleasure,  and  a  few  mediocre 
imitations,  forgotten  as  soon  as  read,  they  have  left  no 
traces  that  we  know  of  in  the  national  mind.  But  it 
was  otherwise  in  France.  Just  as  Byron,  and  the  cast- 
off  boyish  extravagances  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  which 
Byron  did  but  follow,  have  been  the  origin  of  all  the 
sentimental  ruffians,  the  Lacenaires  in  imagination  and 
in  action,  with  which  the  Continent  swarms,  but  have 
produced  little  fruit  of  that  description,  comparatively 
speaking,  in  these  islands  ;  so,  to  compare  good  influ- 
ences with  bad,  did  Scott's  romances,  and  especially 
"  Ivanhoe,"  which  in  England  were  only  the  amusement 
of  an  idle  hour,  give  birth  (or  at  least  nourishment) 
to  one  of  the  principal  intellectual  products  of  our  time, 
the  modern  French  school  of  history.  M.  Thierry, 
whose  "Letters  on  the  History  of  France"  gave  the 
first  impulse,  proclaims  the  fact.  Seeing,  in  these 
fictions,  past  events  for  the  first  time  brought  home  to 
them  as  realities,   not  mere  abstractions ;    startled  by 


262  AEMAND    CAEREL. 

finding,  what  they  had  not  dreamed  of,  Saxons  and 
Normans  in  the  reign  of  Richard  the  First,  —  thinking 
men  felt  flash  upon  them,  for  the  first  time,  the  meaning 
of  that  philosophical  history,  that  history  of  human  life, 
and  not  of  kings  and  battles,  which  Voltaire  talked  of, 
but,  writing  history  for  polemical  purposes,  could  not 
succeed  in  realizing.  Immediately  the  annals  of  France, 
England,  and  other  countries,  began  to  be  systemati- 
cally searched ;  the  characteristic  features  of  society 
and  life  at  each  period  were  gathered  out,  and  exhibited 
in  histories,  and  speculations  on  history,  and  historical 
fictions.  All  works  of  imagination  were  now  expected 
to  have  a  couleur  locale;  and  the  dramatic  scenes  and 
romances  of  Vitet,  Mdrim^e,  and  Alfred  de  Vigny, 
among  the  best  productions  of  the  romantic  school  in 
those  years,  are  evidences  of  the  degree  in  which  they 
attained  it.  M.  de  Barante  wrote  the  history  of  two 
of  the  most  important  centuries  in  his  country's  annals, 
from  the  materials,  and  often  in  the  words,  of  Froissart 
and  Comines.  M.  Thierry's  researches  into  the  early 
history  of  the  town-communities  brought  to  light  some 
of  the  most  important  facts  of  the  progress  of  society  in 
France  and  in  all  Europe.  While  Mignet  and  Thiers, 
in  a  style  worthy  of  the  ancient  models,  but  with  only 
the  common  ideas  of  their  time,  recounted  the  recent 
glories  and  suflferings  of  their  country,  other  writers, 
among  whom  Auguste  Comte  in  his  commencements, 
and  the  founders  of  the  St.  Simonian  school,  were 
conspicuous,  following  in  the  steps  of  Herder,  Vico, 
and  Condorcet,  analyzed  the  facts  of  universal  his- 
tory, and  connected  them  by  generalizations,  which, 
if  unsatisfactory  in  some  respects,  explained  much,  and 


ARM  AND    CARKEL.  263 

placed  much  in  a  new  and  striking  light ;  and  M.  Guizot, 
a  man  of  a  greater  range  of  ideas  and  greater  historical 
impartiality  than  most  of  these,  gave  to  the  world  those 
immortal  Essays  and  Lectures,  for  which  posterity  will 
forgive  him  the  faults  of  his  political  career. 

In  the  midst  of  an  age  thus  teeming  with  valuable 
products  of  thought,  himself  without  any  more  active 
career  to  engross  his  faculties,  the  mind  of  Carrel  could 
not  remain  unproductive.  "  In  a  bookseller's  back- 
shop,"  says  M.  Nisard  (for  the  young  author,  in  his 
struggle  for  subsistence,  for  a  short  time  entered  seri- 
ously into  the  views  of  his  family,  and  embarked  some 
money  supplied  by  them  in  an  unsuccessful  bookselling 
speculation),  "on  a  desk  to  which  was  fastened  a  great 
Newfoundland  dog.  Carrel,  one  moment  absorbed  in 
English  memoirs  and  papers,  another  moment  caressing 
his  favorite  animal,  conceived  and  wrote  his 'History 
of  the  Counter-Re  volution  in  England.'  "  It  was  pub- 
lished in  February,  1827  ;  and  though  the  age  has 
produced  historical  Avorks  of  profounder  philosophical 
investigation,  yet  in  its  kind,  and  for  what  it  aims  at, 
it  deserves  to  be  considered  one  of  the  most  finished 
productions  of  that  remarkable  era. 

It  is  a  history  of  the  two  last  Stuarts ;  of  their 
attempts  to  re-establish  Popery  and  arbitrary  power ; 
their  temporary  success,  and  ultimate  overthrow  by 
the  Revolution  of  1688.  Their  situation  and  conduct 
presented  so  close  a  parallel  to  that  which  the  two  last 
Bourbons  at  that  time  exhibited  in  France,  that  the 
subject  was  a  favorite  one  with  the  French  writers  of 
the  period.  There  could  not  have  been  a  more  natural 
occasion  for  violent  republicanism,  or  any  kind  of  revo- 


264  ARMAND   CARREL. 

lutionary  violence,  to  display  itself,  if  Carrel  had  been 
the  fanatic  which  it  is  often  supposed  that  all  democratic 
reformers  must  be.  But  we  find  no  republicanism 
in  this  book,  no  partisanship  of  any  kind  :  the  book  is 
almost  too  favorable  to  the  Stuarts  :  there  is  hardly 
any  thing  in  it  which  might  not  have  been  written  by  a 
clear-sighted  and  reflecting  person  of  any  of  the  political 
parties  which  divide  the  present  day.  But  we  find 
instead,  in  eveiy  page,  distinct  evidence  of  a  thoroughly 
practical  mind,  — a  mind  which  looks  out,  in  every  situ- 
ation, for  the  causes  which  were  actually  operating ; 
discerns  them  with  sagacity,  sees  what  they  must  have 
produced,  what  could  have  been  done  to  modify  them, 
and  how  far  they  were  practically  misunderstood  :  a 
statesman,  judging  of  statesmen  by  placing  himself 
in  their  circumstances,  and  seeing  what  they  could  have 
done,  not  by  the  rule  and  square  of  some  immutable 
theory  of  mutable  things,  nor  by  that  most  fallacious 
test  for  estimating  men's  actions,  —  the  rightness  or 
wrongness  of  their  speculative  views.  If  Carrel  had 
done  nothing  else,  he  would  have  shown  by  this  book, 
that,  like  Mirabeau,  he  was  not  a  slave  to  formulas  :  no 
pre-established  doctrine  as  to  how  things  must  be,  ever 
prevented  him  from  seeing  them  as  they  were.  "Every- 
where and  at  all  times,"  says  he,  "  it  is  the  wants  of  the 
time  which  have  created  the  conventions  called  political 
principles,  and  those  principles  have  always  been  pushed 
aside  by  those  wants."  —  "All  questions  as  to  forms  of 
government,"  he  says  in  another  place,  "have  their  data 
in  the  condition  of  society,  and  nowhere  else."  The 
whole  spirit  of  the  new  historical  school  is  in  these  two 
sentences.     The  great  character  by  which  Carrel's  book 


ARMAND  CARREL.  265 

differs  from  all  other  histories  of  the  time,  with  which 
we  are  acquainted,  is,  that  in  it  alone  are  we  led  to 
understand  and  account  for  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
time,  from  the  ebb  and  flow  of  public  opinion ;  the 
causes  of  which,  his  own  practical  sagacity,  and  a 
Frenchman's  experience  of  turbulent  times,  enabled 
Carrel  to  perceive  and  interpret  with  a  truth  and  power 
that  must  strike  every  competent  judge  who  compares 
his  short  book  with  the  long  books  of  other  people. 
And  we  may  here  notice,  as  an  example  of  the  superi- 
ority of  French  historical  literature  to  ours,  that  of  the 
most  interesting  period  in  the  English  annals,  the  period 
of  the  Stuarts,  France  has  produced,  within  a  very  few 
years  too,  the  best,  the  second-best,  and  the  third-best 
history.  The  best  is  this  of  Carrel ;  the  second-best 
is  the  unfinished  work  of  M.  Guizot,  —  his  "  History  of 
the  English  Revolution ;  "  the  third  in  merit  is  M. 
Mazure's  "History  of  the  Revolution  of  1688,"  a  work 
of  greater  detail,  and  less  extensive  views,  but  which 
has  brought  much  new  information  from  Barillon's 
papers  and  elsewhere,  is  unexceptionable  as  to  impar- 
tiality, and,  on  the  whole,  a  highly  valuable  accession 
to  the  literature  of  English  history. 

The  style  of  the  "  Histoire  de  la  Contre-R^ volution," 
according  to  M.  Nisard,  did  not  give  Carrel  the  reputa- 
tion he  afterwards  acquired  as  a  master  of  expression. 
But  we  agree  with  M.  Nisard,  a  most  competent  judge, 
and  a  severe  critic  of  his  cotemporaries,  in  thinking  this 
judgment  of  the  French  public  erroneous.  We  already 
recognize  in  this  early  performance  the  pen  which  was 
afterwards  compared  to  a  sword's  point  {il  setnhlait 
Scrire  avec  une  pointe  d'acier).      It  goes  clean  and 


266  ARMAND   CARREL. 

sharp  to  the  very  heart  of  the  thing  to  be  said ;  says  it 
without  ornament  or  periphrasis,  or  phrases  of  any 
kind,  and  in  nearly  the  fewest  words  in  which  so  much 
could  be  told.  The  style  cuts  the  meaning  into  the 
mind  as  with  an  edge  of  steel.  It  wants  the  fertility 
of  fancy  which  Carrel  afterwards  displayed ;  an  indis- 
pensable quality  to  a  writer  of  the  first  rank,  but  one 
which,  in  spite  of  the  authority  of  Cicero  and  Quintil- 
ian,  we  believe  to  be,  oftener  than  is  supposed,  the  last 
rather  than  the  first  quality  which  such  writers  acquire. 
The  grand  requisite  of  good  writing  is  to  have  some- 
thing to  say  :  to  attain  this  is  becoming  more  and  more 
the  grand  effort  of  all  minds  of  any  power  which  em- 
bark in  literature ;  and  important  truths,  at  least  in 
human  nature  and  life,  seldom  reveal  themselves  but  to 
minds  which  are  found  equal  to  the  secondary  task  of 
ornamenting  those  truths,  when  they  have  leisure  to 
attend  to  it.  A  mind  which  has  all  natural  human  feel- 
ings, which  draws  its  ideas  fresh  from  realities,  and, 
like  all  first-rate  minds,  varies  and  multiplies  its  points 
of  view,  gathers,  as  it  goes,  illustrations  and  analogies 
from  all  nature.  So  was  it  with  Carrel.  The  fashion 
of  the  day,  when  he  began,  was  picturesqueness  of 
style ;  and  that  w^as  what  the  imitative  minds  were  all 
straining  for.  Carrel,  who  wrote  from  himself,  and  not 
from  imitation,  put  into  his  style  first  what  was  in  him- 
self first,  —  the  intellect  of  a  great  writer.  The  other 
half  of  the  character,  the  imaginative  part,  came  to 
maturity  somewhat  later,  and  was  first  decidedly  recog- 
nized in  the  "Essays  on  the  War  in  Spain,"  which,  as 
we  have  already  said ,  were  published  in  the  "  Revue 
Fran^aise,"  a  periodical  on  the  plan  of  the  English 


ARMAND   CARREL.  267 

reviews,  to  Avhich  nearly  all  the  most  philosophical 
minds  in  France  contributed,  and  which  was  carried 
on  for  several  years  with  first-rate  ability. 

The  editor  of  this  review  was  M.  Guizot.  That 
Guizot  and  Carrel  should  for  a  time  be  found  not  only 
fighting  under  the  same  banner,  but  publishing  in  the 
same  periodical  orgfin,  is  a  fact  characteristic  of  the 
fusion  of  parties  and  opinions  which  had  by  this  time 
taken  place  to  oppose  the  progress  of  the  counter-revo- 
lution. 

The  victory  in  Spain  had  put  the  royalists  in  com- 
plete possession  of  the  powers  of  go^'ernment.  The 
elections  of  1824  had  given  them,  and  their  septennial 
act  secured  to  them  for  a  period,  their  chanihre  des 
trots  cents,  so  called  from  the  three  hundred  feudalists, 
or  creatures  of  the  feudalists,  who,  with  about  a  hun- 
dred more  moderate  royalists,  and  sixteen  liberals  of 
different  shades,  made  up  the  whole  Chamber.  It  is 
for  history,  already  familiar  with  the  frantic  follies  of 
this  most  un teachable  party,  to  relate  all  they  did  or 
attempted  ;  the  forty  millions  sterling  which  they  voted 
into  their  own  pockets,  under  the  name  of  compensation 
to  the  emigrants  ;  their  law  of  sacrilege,  worthy  of  the 
bigotry  of  the  middle  ages  ;  the  re-establishment  of  the 
Jesuits,  the  putting-down  of  the  Lancasterian  schools, 
and  throwing  all  the  minor  institutions  of  education 
(they  did  not  yet  openly  venture  upon  the  university) 
into  the  hands  of  the  priests.  The  madmen  thought  they 
could  force  back  Catholicism  upon  a  people,  of  whom  the 
educated  classes,  though  not,  as  they  are  sometimes 
represented,  hostile  to  religion,  but  either  simply  indif- 
ferent or  decidedly  disposed  to  a  religion  of  some  sort 


268  ARMAXD    CARREL. 

or  other,  had  for  ever  bidden  adieu  to  that  form  of  it, 
and  could  as  easily  have  been  made  Hindoos  or  Mussul- 
mans as  Roman  Catholics.  All  that  bribery  could  do 
was  to  make  hypocrites;  and  of  these  (some  act  of  hypo- 
crisy being  a  condition  of  perferment)  there  were  many 
edifying  examples, — among  others,  M.  Dupin,  since 
President  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  who,  soon  after 
the  accession  of  Charles  the  Tenth,  devoutly  followed 
the  Hoste  in  a  procession  to  St.  AcheuL*  If  our 
memory  deceive  us  not.  Marshal  Soult  was  another  of 
these  illustrious  converts  :  he  became  one  of  Charles  the 
Tenth's  peers,  and  wanted  only  to  have  been  his  minis- 
ter, too,  to  have  made  him  the  Sunderland  of  the  French 
1688. 

In  the  mean  time,  laws  were  prepared  against  the 
remaining  liberties  of  France,  and  against  the  insti- 
tutions dearest  to  the  people,  of  those  which  the 
Revolution  had  given.  Not  content  with  an  almost 
constant  censorship  on  the  newspaper-press,  the  faction 
proposed  rigid  restraints  upon  the  publication  even  of 
books  below  a  certain  size.  A  law  also  was  framed  to 
re-establish  primogeniture  and  entails  among  a  nation 
which  universally  believes  that  the  family  affections, 
on  the  strength  of  which  it  justly  values  itself,  depend 
upon  the  observance  of  equal  justice  in  families,  and 
would  not  survive  the  revival  of  the  unnatural  prefer- 
ence for  the  eldest  son.  These  laws  passed  the  Cham- 
ber of  Deputies  amidst  the  most  violent  storm  of  public 
opinion  which  had  been  known  in  France  since  the 
Revolution.      The  Chamber  of  Peers,  faithful   to    its 

*  [Also  memorable  as  almost  the  only  man  of  political  distinction  who 
has  given  in  a  similar  adhesion  to  the  present  despotism  ] 


ARMAKD   CARREL.  269 

mission  as  the  conservative  branch  of  the  Constitution, 
rejected  them.  M.  de  Villele  felt  the  danger ;  but  a 
will  more  impetuous  and  a  judgment  weaker  than  his 
own  compelled  him  to  advance.  He  created  (or  the 
king  created)  a  batch  of  sixty-six  peers,  and  dissolved 
the  Chamber. 

But  affairs  had  greatly  altered  since  the  elections 
of  1824.  By  the  progress,  not  only  of  disgust  at 
the  conduct  of  the  faction,  but  of  a  presentiment  of  the' 
terrible  crisis  to  which  it  was  about  to  lead,  the  whole 
of  the  new  aristocracy  had  now  gone  over  to  the  people. 
Not  only  they,  but  the  more  reasonable  portion  of 
the  old  aristocracy,  the  moderate  royalist  party,  headed 
by  Chateaubriand,  and  represented  by  the  "  Journal 
des  D^bats,"  had  early  separated  themselves  from  the 
counter-revolutionary  faction  of  which  M.  de  Villele 
was  the  unwilling  instrument.  Both  these  bodies,  and 
the  popular  party,  now  gi*eatly  increased  in  strength 
even  among  the  electors,  knit  themselves  in  one  com- 
pact mass  to  overthrow  the  Villele  Ministry.  The 
Aide-toi  Society,  in  which  even  M.  Guizot  acted  a 
conspicuous  part,  but  which  was  mainly  composed  of 
the  most  energetic  young  men  of  the  popular  party, 
conducted  the  correspondence  and  organized  the  ma- 
chinery for  the  elections.  A  large  majority  was  re- 
turned hostile  to  the  ministry :  they  were  forced  to 
retire ;  and  the  king  had  to  submit  to  a  ministry  of 
moderate  royalists,  commonly  called,  from  its  most  in- 
fluential member,  the  Martignac  Ministry. 

The  short  interval  of  eighteen  months,  during  which 
this  ministry  lasted,  was  the  brightest  period  which 
France  has  known  since  the  Revolution  ;  for  a  reason 


270  ARMAND    CARREL. 

which  well  merits  attention,  those  who  had  the  real 
power  in  the  country,  the  men  of  property  and  the 
men  of  talent,  had  not  the  power  at  the  Tuileries,  nor 
any  near  prospect  of  having  it.  It  is  the  grievous 
misfortune  of  France,  that,  being  still  new  to  consti- 
tutional ideas  and  institutions,  she  has  never  known 
what  it  is  to  have  a  fair  government,  in  which  there  is 
not  one  law  for  the  party  in  power,  and  another  law  for 
'its  opponents.  The  French  Government  is  not  a  con- 
stitutional government :  it  is  a  despotism  limited  by 
a  parliament.  Whatever  party  can  get  the  executive 
into  its  hands,  and  induce  a  majority  of  the  Chamber 
to  support  it,  does  practically  whatever  it  pleases : 
hardly  any  thing  that  it  can  be  guilty  of  towards  its 
opponents  alienates  its  supporters,  unless  they  fear  that 
they  are  themselves  marked  out  to  be.  the  next  victims  ; 
and  even  the  trampled-on  minority  fixes  its  hopes,  not 
upon  limiting  arbitrary  power,  but  upon  becoming  the 
stronger  party,  and  tyrannizing  in  its  turn.  It  is  to 
the  eternal  honor  of  Carrel,  that  he,  and  he  almost 
alone,  in  a  subsequent  period  far  less  favorable  than 
that  of  which  we  are  speaking,  recognized  the  great 
principle  of  which  all  parties  had  more  than  ever  lost 
sight ;  saw  that  this,  above  all,  was  what  his  country 
wanted  ;  unfurled  the  banner  of  equal  justice  and 
equal  protection  to  all  opinions ;  bore  it  bravely  aloft 
in  weal  and  woe  over  the  stormy  seas  on  which  he  was 
cast;  and,  when  he  sank,  sank  with  it  flying.  It 
was  too  late.  A  revolution  had  intervened ;  and  even 
those  who  suffered  from  tyranny  had  learnt  to  hope 
for  relief  from  revolution,  and  not  from  law  or  opinion. 
But,  during  the  Martignac  Ministry,   all  parties  were 


ARMAND   CARREL.  271 

equally  afraid  of,  and  would  have  made  equal  sacrifices 
to  avert,  a  convulsion.  The  idea  gained  ground,  and 
appeared  to  be  becoming  general,  of  building  up  in 
France,  for  the  first  time,  a  government  of  law.  It  was 
known  that  the  king  was  wedded  to  the  counter-revolu- 
tionary party  ;  and  that,  without  a  revolution,  the  powers 
of  the  executive  would  never  be  at  the  disposal  of  the 
new  aristocracy  of  wealth,  or  of  the  men  of  talent  who 
had  put  themselves  at  the  head  of  it.  But  they  had 
the  command  of  the  legislature ;  and  they  used  the 
power  which  they  had  to  reduce  within  bounds  that 
which  by  peaceable  means  they  could  not  hope  to  have. 
For  the  first  time,  it  became  the  object  of  the  first 
speculative  and  practical  politicians  in  France  to  limit 
the  power  of  the  executive  ;  to  erect  barriers  of  opinion, 
and  barriers  of  law,  which  it  should  not  be  able  to 
overpass,  and  which  should  give  the  citizen  that  pro- 
tection, which  he  had  never  yet  had  in  France,  against 
the  tyranny  of  the  magistrate ;  to  form,  as  it  was  often 
expressed,  les  tnmurs  constitutionnelles,  the  habits 
and  feelings  of  a  free  government ;  and  establish  in 
France,  what  is  the  greatest  political  blessing  enjoyed 
in  England,  the  national  feeling  of  respect,  and  obedi- 
ence to  the  law. 

Nothing  could  seem  more  hopeful  than  the  progress 
which  France  was  making,  under  the  Martignac  Minis- 
try, towards  this  great  improvement.  The  discussions 
of  the  press,  and  the  teachings  of  the  able  men  who 
headed  the  opposition,  especially  the  Doctrinaires  (as 
they  were  called),  M.  Royer  Collard,  the  Due  de 
Broglie,  M.  Guizot,  and  their  followers,  who  then 
occupied  the  front  rank  of  the  popular  party,  were  by 


272  ARM  AND    CARREL. 

degrees  working  the  salutary  feelings  of  a  constitutional 
government  into  the  public  mind.  But  they  had  barely 
time  to  penetrate  the  surface.  The  same  madness 
which  hurled  James  the  Second  from  his  throne  was 
now  fatal  to  Charles  the  Tenth.  In  an  evil  hour  for 
France,  unless  England  one  day  repay  her  the  debt 
which  she  unquestionably  owes  her  for  the  Reform 
BiU,  the  promise  of  this  auspicious  moment  was 
blighted ;  the  Martignac  Ministry  was  dismissed ;  a  set 
of  furious  emigres  were  appointed ;  and,  a  new  gene- 
ral election  having  brought  a  majority  still  more  hostile 
to  them,  the  famous  Ordonnances  were  issued,  and  the 
Bourbon  Monarchy  was  swept  from  the  face  of  the 
earth. 

We  have  called  the  event  which  necessitated  the 
Revolution  of  July  a  misfortune  to  France.  We  wish 
earnestly  to  think  it  otherwise.  But  if  in  some  forms 
that  Revolution  has  brought  considerable  good  to 
France,  in  many  it  has  brought  serious  ill.  Among 
the  evils  which  it  has  done,  we  select  two  of  the 
greatest :  it  stopped  the  progress  of  the  French  people 
towards  recognizing  the  necessity  of  equal  law,  and 
a  strict  definition  of  the  powers  of  the  magistrate ; 
and  it  checked,  and  for  a  time  almost  suspended,  the 
literary  and  philosophic  movement  which  had  com- 
menced. 

On  the  fall  of  the  old  aristocracy,  the  new  oligarchy 
came  at  once  into  power.  They  did  not  all  get  places, 
only  because  there  were  not  places  for  all.  But  there 
was  a  large  abundance  ;  and  they  rushed  upon  them  like 
tigers  upon  their  prey.  No  precaution  was  taken  by 
the  people  against  this  new  enemy.     The  discussions 


ARMAJfD   CAEKEL.  273 

of  the  press  in  the  years  preceding,  confined  as  they 
had  been,  both  by  public  opinion  and  by  severe  legal 
penalties,  strictly  within  the  limits  of  the  Charter,  had 
not  made  familiar  to  the  public  mind  the  necessity  of  an 
extended  suffrage ;  and  the  minds  even  of  enlightened 
men,  as  we  can  personally  testify,  at  the  time  of  the 
formation  of  the  new  government,  were  in  a  state  of 
the  utmost  obtuseness  on  the  subject.  The  eighty 
thousand  electors  had  hitherto  been  on  the  side  of  the 
people  ;  and  nobody  seemed  to  see  any  reason  why  this 
should  not  continue  to  be  the  case.  The  oligarchy 
of  wealth  was  thus  allowed  quietly  to  install  itself;  its 
leaders,  and  the  men  of  literary  talent  who  were  its 
writers  and  orators,  became  ministers,  or  expectant 
ministers,  and  no  longer  sought  to  limit  the  power 
which  was  henceforth  to  be  their  own :  by  degrees, 
even,  as  others  attempted  to  limit  it,  they  violated  in 
its  defence,  one  after  another,  every  salutary  principle 
of  freedom  which  they  had  themselves  labored  to  im- 
plant in  the  popular  mind.  They  reckoned,  and  the 
event  shows  that  they  could  safely  reckon,  upon  the 
king  whom  they  had  set  up ;  that  he  would  see  his 
interest  in  keeping  a  strict  alliance  with  them.  There 
was  no  longer  any  rival  power  interested  in  limiting 
that  of  the  party  in  office.  There  were  the  people ; 
but  the  people  could  not  make  themselves  felt  in  the 
legislature  :  and  attempts  at  insurrection,  until  the  re- 
sistance becomes  thoroughly  national,  a  government 
is  always  strong  enough  to  put  down.  There  was  the 
aristocracy  of  talent ;  and  the  course  was  adopted  of 
buying  off  these  with  a  portion  of  the  spoil.  One 
of  the  most  deplorable  effects  of  the  new  government  of 

VOL.  I.  18 


274  ARMAND    CARREL. 

France  is  the  profligate  immorality  which  it  is  industri- 
ously spreading  among  the  ablest  and  most  accomplished 
of  the  youth.  All  the  arts  of  corruption  which  Napoleon 
exercised  towards  the  dregs  of  the  Revolution  are  put 
in  practice  by  the  present  ruler  upon  the  elite  of  France  ; 
and  few  are  they  that  resist.  Some  rushed  headlong 
from  the  first,  and  met  the  bribers  half  way  :  others 
held  out  for  a  time ;  but  their  virtue  failed  them  as 
things  grew  more  desperate,  and  as  they  grew  more 
hungry.  Every  man  of  literary  reputation,  who  will 
sell  himself  to  the  government,  is  gorged  with  places, 
and  loaded  with  decorations.  Every  rising  young  man 
of  the  least  promise  is  lured  and  courted  to  the  same 
dishonorable  distinction.  Those  who  resist  the  seduc- 
tion must  be  proof  against  every  temptation  which  is 
strongest  on  a  French  mind :  for  the  vanity,  which 
is  the  bad  side  of  the  national  sociability  and  love  of 
sympathy,  makes  the  French,  of  all  others,  the  people 
who  are  the  most  eager  for  distinction  ;  and  as  there  is 
no  national  respect  for  birth,  and  but  little  for  wealth, 
almost  the  only  adventitious  distinctions  are  those  which 
the  government  can  confer.  Accordingly,  the  pursuits 
of  intellect,  but  lately  so  ardently  engaged  in,  are  almost 
abandoned  ;  no  enthusiastic  crowds  now  throng  the  lec- 
ture-room :  M.  Guizot  has  left  his  professor's  chair  and 
his  historical  speculations,  and  would  fain  be  the  Sir 
Robert  Peel  of  France ;  M.  Thiers  is  trying  to  be  the 
Canning ;  M.  Cousin  and  M.  Villemain  have  ceased 
to  lecture,  —  have  ceased  even  to  publish ;  M.  de 
Barante  is  an  ambassador ;  Tanneguy  Duchatel,  in- 
stead of  expounding  Ricardo,  and  making  his  profound 
speculations  known  where  they  are  more  needed  than 


ARMAND    CARREL.  275 

in  any  other  country  in  Europe,  became  a  Minister  of 
Commerce,  who  dared  not  act  upon  his  own  principles, 
and  is  waiting  to  be  so  again  ;  the  press,  which  so  lately 
teemed  with  books  of  history  and  philosophy,  now  scarce- 
ly produces  one ;  and  the  young  men  who  could  have 
written  them  are  either  placemen  or  gaping  place- 
hunters,  disgusting  the  well-disposed  of  all  parties  by 
their  avidity,  and  their  open  defiance  of  even  the  pre- 
tence of  principle. 

Carrel  was  exposed  to  the  same  temptations  with 
other  young  men  of  talent ;  but  we  claim  no  especial 
merit  for  him  in  having  resisted  them.  Immediately 
after  the  Revolution,  in  which,  as  already  observed,  he 
took  a  distinguished  part,  he  was  sent  by  the  govern- 
ment on  an  important  mission  to  the  West :  on  his 
return,  he  found  himself  gazetted  for  a  prefecture ; 
which  at  that  time  he  might  honestly  have  accepted,  as 
many  others  did  whom  the  conduct  of  the  government 
afterwards  forced  to  retire.  Carrel  used  sportively  to 
say,  that,  if  he  had  been  offered  a  regiment,  he  perhaps 
could  not  have  found  in  his  heart  to  refuse.  But  he 
declined  the  prefecture,  and  took  his  post  as  editor  and 
chief  writer  of  the  "National,"  which  he  had  founded 
a  few  months  before  the  Revolution,  in  conjunction  with 
MM.  Mignet  and  Thiers,  but  which  M.  Thiers  had  con- 
ducted until  he  and  M.  Mignet  got  into  place.  Carrel 
now  assumed  the  management ;  and  from  this  time  his 
rise  was  rapid  to  that  place  in  the  eye  of  the  public, 
which  made  him,  at  one  period,  the  most  conspicuous 
private  person  in  France.  Never  was  there  an  emi- 
nence better  merited ;  and  we  have  now  to  tell  how 
he  acquired  it,  and  how  he  used  it.  ^ 


276  AKMAND    CARREL. 

It  was  by  no  trick,  no  compliance  with  any  prevailing 
fashion    or  prejudice,  that   Carrel  became  the  leading 
figure  in  politics  on  the  popular  side.     It  was  by  the 
ascendency  of  character  and  talents,  legitimately  exer- 
cised, in  a  position  for  which  he  was  more  fitted  than 
any  other  man  of  his  age,  and  of  which  he  at  once 
entered  into  the  true  character,'  and  applied  it  to  its 
practical  use.     From  this  time  we  are  to  consider  Carrel, 
not  as  a  literary  man,  but  as  a  politician ;   and  his  writ- 
ings are  to  be  judged  by  the  laws  of  popular  oratory. 
"  Carrel,"  says  M.  Nisard,  "  was  a  writer,  only  for  want 
of  having  an  active  career  fit  to  occupy  all  his  faculties. 
He  never  sought  to  make  himself  a  name  in  literature. 
Writing  was  to  him  a  means  of  impressing,  under  the 
form  of  doctrines,   his   own  practical   aims   upon    the 
minds    of  those   whom    he    addressed.      In    his  view, 
the  model  of  a  writer  was  a  man  of  action  relating  his 
acts ;    Caesar  in  his   Commentaries,  Bonaparte    in   his 
Memoirs  :   he  held  that  one  ought  to  write  either  after 
having  acted,  or  as  a  mode  of  action,  when  there  is  no 
other  mode  effectual  or  allowable.     At  a  later  period, 
his  notion  was  modified,   or  rather  enlarged  : "  and  he 
recognized  that  there  is  not  only  action  upon  the  out- 
ward world  ;  there  is  also  action  upon  the  spiritual  world 
of  thought  and  feeling,  —  the  action  of  the  artist,  the 
preacher,    and   the   philosopher.       "Thus   completed," 
says  M.  Nisard,  "  Carrel's  idea  is  the  best  theory  of 
the  art  of  composition  :  "  as  indeed  it  is  ;   and  it  was  the 
secret  of  Carrel's  success.      "He  who  has   a  passion 
stronger  than  the  love  of  literary  reputation,  and  who 
writes    only  to   inspire   others  with  the  same,  —  such 
a  man,  proceeding  upon  the  simple  idea  that  the  pen 


ARMAND   CARREL.  277 

should  be  a  mere  instrument,  will  write  well  from  the 
commencement ;  and  if  he  has  instinct,  which  only 
means  a  turn  of  mind  conformable  to  the  genius  of  his 
nation,  he  may  become  a  writer  of  the  first  rank,  with- 
out even  considering  himself  to  be  a  writer." 

Of  his  eminence  as  a  writer,  there  is  but  one  opinion 
in  France :  there  can  be  but  one  among  competent 
judges  in  any  country.  Already,  from  the  time  of  his 
"Essays  on  the  War  in  Spain,"  "  nothing  mediocre  had 
issued  from  his  pen."  In  the  various  papers,  literary 
or  political,  which  he  published  in  different  periodical 
works,  "  that  quality  of  painting  by  words,  which  had 
been  seen  almost  with  surprise  in  his  articles  on  Spain, 
shines  forth  in  nearly  every  sentence.  But  let  there  be 
no  mistake.  It  was  not  some  art  or  mystery  of  effect 
in  which  Carrel  had  grown  more  dexterous  :  his  expres- 
sion had  become  more  graphic,  only  because  his  thoughts 
had  become  clearer,  of  a  loftier  order,  and  more  com- 
pletely his  own.  Like  all  great  writers,  he  proportions 
his  style  to  his  ideas,  and  can  be  simple  and  unpretend- 
ing in  his  language  when  his  thoughts  are  of  a  kind 
which  do  not  require  that  Reason,  to  express  them, 
should  call  in  the  aid  of  Imagination-  To  apply  to  all 
things  indiscriminately  a  certain  gift  of  brilliancy  which 
one  is  conscious  of,  and  for  which  one  has  been  praised, 
is  not  genius,  any  more  than  flinging  epigrams  about  on 
all  occasions  is  wit." 

"  All  the  qualities,"  continues  M.  Nisard,  "  which 
Carrel  possessed  from  his  first  taking  up  the  pen,  with 
this  additional  gift,  which  came  the  last,  only  because 
there  had  not  before  been  any  sufficient  occasion  to  call 
it  out,  burst  forth  in  the  polemics  of  the  'National* 


278  ARMAND   CAEREL. 

with  a  splendor,  which,  to  any  candid  person,  it  must 
appear  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate.  For  who  can  be 
ungrateful  to  a  talent  which  even  those  who  feared 
admired?  whether  they  really  feared  it  less  than  they 
pretended,  or  that,  in  France,  people  are  never  so  much 
afraid  of  talent  as  to  forego  the  pleasure  of  admiring  it. 
I  shall  not  hesitate  to  affirm,  that,  from  1831  to  1834, 
the  'National,'  considered  merely  as  a  monument  of 
political  literature,  is  the  most  original  production  of  the 
nineteenth  century."  This,  from  so  sober  a  judge,  and 
in  an  age  and  country  which  has  produced  Paul  Louis 
Courier,  is,  we  may  hope,  sufficient. 

Both  M.  Littr^  and  M.  Nisard  compare  Carrel's 
political  writings,  as  literary  productions,  to  the  Letters 
of  Junius ;  though  M.  Nisard  gives  greatly  the  supe- 
riority to  Carrel.  But  the  comparison  itself  is  an  injus- 
tice to  him.  There  never  was  any  thing  less  like  popular 
oratory  than  those  polished  but  stiff  and  unnatural  pro- 
ductions ;  where  every  cadence  seems  predetermined, 
and  the  writer  knew  the  place  of  every  subsequent  word 
in  the  sentence  before  he  finally  resolved  on  the  first. 
The  Orations  of  Demosthenes,  though  even  Demosthe- 
nes could  not  have  extemporized  them,  are  but  the  ideal 
and  unattainable  perfection  of  extemporaneous  speak- 
ing ;  but  Apollo  himself  could  not  have  spoken  the 
Letters  of  Junius,  without  pausing  at  the  end  of  every 
sentence  to  arrange  the  next.  A  piece  of  mere  paint- 
ing, like  any  other  work  of  art,  may  be  finished  by  a 
succession  of  touches  ;  but  when  spirit  speaks  to  spirit, 
not  in  order  to  please,  but  to  incite,  every  thing  must 
seem  to  come  from  one  impulse,  —  from  a  soul  en- 
grossed  for  the  moment,  with  one  feeling.     It  seemed 


AR]VL\ND   CAEREL.  279 

SO  with  Carrel,  because  it  was  so.  "  Unlike  Paul  Louis 
Courier,"  says  M.  Littr^,  "who  hesitated  at  a  word, 
Carrel  never  hesitated  at  a  sentence ; "  and  he  could 
speak,  whenever  called  upon,  in  the  same  style  in  which 
he  wrote.  His  style  has  that  breadth,  which  in  litera- 
ture, as  in  other  works  of  art,  shows  that  the  artist  has 
a  character ;  that  some  conceptions  and  some  feelings 
predominate  in  his  mind  over  others.  Its  fundamental 
quality  is  that  ^'hich  M,  Littre  has  well  characterized 
la  sHretS  de  V expression:  it  goes  straight  home.  The 
right  word  is  always  found,  and  never  seems  to  be 
sought :  words  are  never  wanting  to  his  thoughts,  and 
never  pass  before  them.  "  U expression  "  (we  will  not 
spoil  by  translation  M.  Littrd's  finely  chosen  phrase- 
ology) "  arrivait  toujours  abondante  comme  la  pensee, 
si  pleine  et  si  abondante  elle-meme  ;  "  "  and,  if  one  is 
not  copscious  of  the  labor  of  a  writer  retouching  care- 
fully every  passage,  one  is  conscious  of  a  vigorous 
inspiration,  which  endows  every  thing  with  movement, 
form,  and  color,  and  casts  in  one  and  the  same  mould 
the  style  and  the  thought J'^ 

It  would  have  been  in  complete  contradiction  to  Car- 
rel's idea  of  journalism  for  the  writer  to  remain  behind 
a  curtain.  The  English  idea  of  a  newspaper,  as  a  sort 
of  impersonal  thing,  coming  from  nobody  knows  where, 
the  readers  never  thinking  of  the  writer,  nor  caring 
whether  he  thinks  what  he  writes,  as  long  as  they  think 
what  he  writes,  — this  woulcj  not  have  done  for  Carrel, 
nor  been  consistent  with  his  objects.  The  opposite  idea 
already,  to  some  extent,  prevailed  in  France  :  news- 
papers were  often  written  in,  and  had  occasionally  been 
edited,  by  political  characters  ;  but  no  political  character 


280  ABMANJy  CAEREL. 

(since  the  first  Revolution)  had  made  itself  by  a  news- 
paper. Carrel  did  so.  To  say,  that,  during  the  years 
of  his  management,  Carrel  conducted  the  "  National," 
would  give  an  insufficient  idea.  The  "  National "  was 
Carrel :  it  was  as  much  himself  as  was  his  conversation, 
as  could  have  been  his  speeches  in  the  Chamber,  or  his 
acts  as  a  public  functionary.  "  The  '  National,' "  says 
M.  Littr^,  "was  a  personification  of  Armand  Carrel; 
and  if  the  journal  gave  expression  to  the  thoughts,  the 
impulses,  the  passions,  of  the  writer,  the  writer,  in  his 
turn,  was  always  on  the  breach,  prepared  to  defend,  at 
the  peril  of  his  life  or  of  his  liberty,  what  he  had  said 
in  the  journal." 

He  never  separated  himself  from  his  newspaper.  He 
never  considered  the  newspaper  one  thing,  and  himself 
another.  What  was  said  by  a  newspaper  to  a  news- 
paper, he  considered  as  said  by  a  man  to  a  man,  and 
acted  accordingly.  He  never  said  any  thing  in  his 
paper,  to  or  of  any  man,  which  he  would  not  have  both 
dared,  and  thought  it  right,  to  say  personally  and  in  his 
presence.  He  insisted  upon  being  treated  in  the  same 
way,  and  generally  was  so ;  though  the  necessity  in 
which  he  thought  himself  of  repelling  insult  had 
involved  him  in  two  duels  before  his  last  fatal  one. 
Where  danger  was  to  be  incurred  in  resisting  arbitrary 
power,  he  was  always  the  first  to  seek  it :  he  never  hes- 
itated to  throw  down  the  gauntlet  to  the  government, 
challenging  it  to  try  upon  him  any  outrage  which  it  was 
meditating  against  the  liberty  or  the  safety  of  the  citi- 
zen. Nor  was  this  a  mere  bravado  :  no  one  will  think 
it  so,  who  knows  how  unscrupulous  are  all  French  gov- 
ernments, how  prone  to  act  from  irritated  vanity  more 


ARMAND   CARREL.  281 

than  from  calculation,  and  how  likely  to  commit  an 
imprudence  rather  than  acknowledge  a  defeat.  Carrel 
thwarted  a  nefarious  attempt  of  the  Perier  Ministry  to 
establish  the  practice  of  incarcerating  writers  previously 
to  trial.  The  thing  had  been  already  done  in  several 
instances,  when  Carrel,  in  a  calm  and  weU-reasoned 
article  which  he  signed  with  his  name,  demonstrated  its 
illegality,  and  declared,  that,  if  it  was  attempted  in  his 
own  case,  he  would,  at  the  peril  of  his  life,  oppose  force 
to  force.  This  produced  its  effect :  the  illegality  was 
not  repeated.  Carrel  was  prosecuted  for  his  article, 
pleaded  his  own  cause,  and  was  acquitted ;  as  on  every 
subsequent  occasion  when  the  paper  was  prosecuted, 
and  he  defended  it  in  person  before  a  jury.  The  "  Na- 
tional," often  prosecuted,  was  never  condemned  but 
once ;  when,  by  a  miserable  quibble,  the  cause  was 
taken  from  the  jury  to  be  tried  by  the  court  alone ;  and 
once  again  before  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  —  an  occasion 
which  was  made  memorable  by  the  spmt  with  which 
Carrel  spoke  out,  in  the  face  of  the  tribunal  which  was 
sitting  to  judge  him,  what  all  France  thinks  of  one  of 
the  most  celebrated  of  its  proceedings, — the  trial  and 
condemnation  of  Marshal  Ney.  Nothing  on  this  occa- 
sion could  have  saved  Carrel  from  a  heavy  fine  or  a  long 
imprisonment,  had  not  a  member  of  the  Chamber  itself. 
Gen.  Excelmans,  hurried  away  by  an  irresistible  im- 
pulse, risen  in  his  place,  acknowledged  the  sentiment, 
and  repeated  it. 

Without  these  manifestations  of  spirit  and  intrepidity. 
Carrel,  however  he  might  have  been  admired  as  a 
writer,  could  not  have  acquired  his  great  influence  as 
a  man ;   nor  been  enabled,  without  imputation  on  his 


282  ARMAND    CAEEEL. 

courage,  to  keep  aloof  from  the  more  violent  proceed- 
ings of  his  party,  and  discountenance,  as  he  steadily 
did,  all  premature  attempts  to  carry  their  point  by 
physical  force. 

Whatever  may  have  been  Carrel's  individual  opinions, 
he  did  not,  in  the  "National,"  begin  by  being  a  repub- 
lican :  he  was  willing  to  give  the  new  chief-magistrate 
a  fair  trial ;  nor  was  it  until  that  personage  had  quar- 
relled with  Lafayette,  driven  Dupont  de  I'Eure  and 
LafBtte  from  office,  and  called  Casimir  Perier  to  his 
councils  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  turning  back  the 
movement,  that  Carrel  hoisted  republican  colors.  Long 
before  this,  the  symptoms  of  what  was  coming  had  been 
so  evident  as  to  imbitter  the  last  moments  of  Benjamin 
Constant,  if  not,  as  was  generally  believed,  to  shorten 
his  existence.  The  new  oligarcliy  had  declared,  both 
by  their  words  and  their  deeds,  that  they  had  conquered 
for  themselves,  and  not  for  the  people :  and  the  king 
had  shown  his  determination,  that  through  them  he 
would  govern ;  that  he  would  make  himself  necessary 
to  them,  and  be  a  despot,  using  them  and  rewarding 
them  as  his  tools.  It  was  the  position  which  the  king 
assumed  as  the  head  of  the  oligarchy  which  made  Carrel 
a  republican.  He  was  no  fanatic  to  care  about  a  name, 
and  was  too  essentially  practical  in  his  turn  of  mind  to 
fight  for  a  mere  abstract  principle.  The  object  of  his 
declaration  of  republicanism  was  a  thoroughly  practical 
one,  —  to  strike  at  the  ringleader  of  the  opposite  party  ; 
and,  if  it  were  impossible  to  overthrow  him,  to  do  what 
was  possible,  —  to  deprive  him  of  the  support  of 
opinion. 

Events  have  decided  against  Carrel ;   and  it  is  easy, 


ARMAND    CARREL.  283 

judging  after  the  fact,  to  pronounce  that  the  position 
he  took  up  was  not  a  wise  one.  We  do  not  contend 
that  it  was  so  ;  but  we  do  contend  that  he  might  think 
it  so,  with  very  little  disparagement  to  his  judgment. 

On  what  ground  is  it,  that  some  of  the  best  writers 
and  thinkers  in  free  countries  have  recommended  kingly- 
government  ;  have  stood  up  for  constitutional  royalty 
as  the  best  form  of  a  free  constitution,  or  at  least  one, 
Avhich,  where  it  exists,  no  rational  person  would  wish 
to  disturb?  On  one  ground  only,  and  on  one  condi- 
tion ,  —  that  a  constitutional  monarch  does  not  himself 
govern,  does  not  exercise  his  own  will  in  governing, 
but  confines  himself  to  appointing  responsible  ministers, 
and  even  in  that  does  but  ascertain  and  give  effect  to 
the  national  will.  When  this  condition  is  observed,  — 
and  it  is,  on  the  whole,  faithfully  observed  in  our  own 
country,  —  it  is  asked,  and  very  reasonably,  what  more 
could  be  expected  from  a  republic?  and  where  is  the 
benefit  which  would  be  gained  by  opening  the  highest 
office  in  the  State,  the  only  place  which  carries  with  it 
the  most  tempting  part  (to  common  minds)  of  power, 
the  show  of  it,  as  a  prize  to  be  scrambled  for  by  every 
ambitious  and  turbulent  spirit,  who  is  willing  to  keep 
the  community,  for  his  benefit,  in  the  mean  turmoil  of 
a  perpetual  canvass  ?  These  are  the  arguments  used  : 
they  are,  in  the  present  state  of  society,  unanswerable  ; 
and  we  should  not  say  a  word  for  Carrel,  if  the 'French 
government  bore,  or  ever  had  borne,  the  most  distant 
resemblance  to  this  idea  of  constitutional  royalty.  But 
it  never  did  :  no  French  king  ever  confined  himself 
within  the  limits  which  the  best  friends  of  constitutional 
monarchy  allow  to  be  indispensable  to  its   innocuous- 


284  ARMAND    CARREL. 

'ness  :  it  is  always  the  king,  and  not  his  ministers,  that 
governs ;  and  the  power  of  an  English  king  would 
appear  to  Louis  Philippe  a  mere  mockery  of  royalty. 
Now,  if  the  chief  functionary  was  to  be  his  own  minis- 
ter, it  appeared  to  Carrel  absolutely  necessary  that  he 
should  be  a  responsible  one.  The  principle  of  a  re- 
sponsible executive  appeared  to  him  too  all-important 
to  be  sacrificed.  As  the  king  would  not  content  him- 
self wath  being  king,  there  must,  instead  of  a  king,  be 
a  removable  and  accountable  magistrate. 

As  for  the  dangers  of  a  republic,  we  should  carry 
back  our  minds  to  the  period  which  followed  the  Three 
Days,  and  to  the  impression  made  on  all  Europe  by  the 
bravery,  the  integrity,  the  gentleness,  and  chivalrous  gen- 
erosity, displayed  at  that  time  by  the  populace  of  Paris, 
and  ask  ourselves  whether  it  was  inexcusable  to  have 
hoped  every  thing  from  a  people  of  whom  the  very 
lowest  ranks  could  thus  act,  —  a  people,  too,  among 
whom,  out  of  a  few  large  towns,  there  is  little  indi- 
gence ;  where  almost  every  peasant  has  his  piece  of 
land  ;  where  the  number  of  landed  proprietors  is  more 
than  half  the  number  of  grown-up  men  in  the  country ; 
and  where,  by  a  natural  consequence,  the  respect  for 
the  right  of  property  amounts  to  a  superstition.  If, 
among  such  a  people,  there  could  be  danger  in  repub- 
licanism, Carrel  saw  greater  dangers,  which  could  only 
be  averled  by  republicanism.  He  saw  the  whole  Con- 
tinent armed,  and  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to  pour 
into  France  from  all  sides.  He  thought,  and  it  was 
the  principal  mistake  Avhich  he  committed,  that  this 
collision  could  not  be  averted  ;  and  he  thought,  which 
was  no  mistake,  that,  if  it  came,  nothing  would  enable 


AKMAND   CARREL.  285 

France  to  bear  the  brunt  of  it  but  that  which  had 
carried  her  through  it  before,  — intense  popuhir  enthu- 
siasm. This  was  impossible  with  Louis  Philippe  ;  and, 
if  a  levy  en  masse  was  tO  be  again  required  of  all 
citizens,  it  must  be  in  a  cause  which  should  be  worth 
fighting  for,  —  a  cause  in  which  all  should  feel  that  they 
had  an  equal  stake. 

These  were  the  reasons  which  made  Carrel  declare 
for  a  republic.  They  are,  no  doubt,  refuted  by  the 
fact,  that  the  public  mind  was  not  ripe  for  a  republic, 
and  would  not  have  it.  It  would  have  been  better, 
probably,  instead  of  the  republican  standard,  to  have 
raised,  as  Carrel  afterwards  did,  that  of  a  large  parlia- 
mentary reform.  But  the  public,  as  yet,  were  still  less 
prepared  to  join  in  this  demand  than  in  the  other.  A 
republic  would  have  brought  this  among  other  things  ; 
and  although,  by  professing  republicanism,  there  was 
danger  of  alarming  the  timid,  there  was  the  advantage 
of  being  able  to  appeal  to  a  feeling  already  general  and 
deeply  rooted,  —  the  national  aversion  to  the  principle 
of  hereditary  privileges.  The  force  of  this  aversion  was 
clearly  seen,  when  it  extorted,  even  from  Louis  Philippe, 
the  abolition  of  the  hereditary  peerage  ;  and,  in  choos- 
ing a  point  of  attack  which  put  this  feeling  on  his  side, 
Carrel  did  not  show  himself  a  bad  tactician. 

Nor  was  it  so  clear  at  that  time  that  the  public  mind 
was  not  ripe.  Opinion  advances  quickly  in  times  of 
revolution  :  at  the  time  of  which  we  speak,  it  had  set 
in  rapidly  in  the  direction  of  what  was  called  "the 
movement ;  "  and  the  manifestation  of  public  feeling  at 
the  funeral  of  Gen.  Lamarque,  in  June,  1832,  was 
such,  that  many  competent  judges  think  it  must  have 


286  ARMAND    CAEREL. 

been  yielded  to,  and  the  king  must  have  changed  his 
policy,  but  for  the  unfortunate  collision  which  occurred 
on  that  day  between  the  people  and  the  troops,  which 
produced  a  conflict  that  lasted  two  days,  and  led  to  the 
memorable  ordonnance  placing  Paris  under  martial 
law.  On  this  occasion,  the  responsible  editor  of  the 
"  National "  was  tried  on  a  capital  charge  for  an  article 
of  Carrel's,  published  just  before  the  conflict,  and  con- 
strued as  an  instigation  to  rebellion.  He  was  acquit- 
ted, not  only  of  the  capital,  but  of  the  minor  offence ; 
and  it  was  proved  on  the  trial,  from  an  oflficial  report 
of  Gen.  Pajol,  the  officer  in  command,  that  the  conflict 
began  on  the  side  of  the  military,  who  attacked  the  peo- 
ple because  (as  at  the  funeral  of  our  Queen  Caroline)  an 
attempt  was  made  to  change  the  course  of  the  proces- 
sion, and  carry  Lamarque's  remains  to  the  Pantheon. 
But,  the  battle  once  begun,  many  known  republicans 
had  joined  in  it :  they  had  fought  with  desperation,  and 
the  blame  was  generally  thrown  upon  them.  From  this 
time,  the  fear  of  emeutes  spread  among  the  trading 
classes,  and  they  rallied  round  the  throne  of  Louis 
Philippe. 

Though  the  tide  now  decidedly  turned  in  favor  of  the 
party  of  resistance,  and  the  moderate  opposition  headed 
by  M.  Odilon  Barrot  and  jNI.  Mauguin  lost  the  greater 
part  of  its  supporters,  the  republican  opposition  con- 
tinued for  some  time  longer  to  increase  in  strength  ;  and 
Carrel,  becoming  more  and  more  indisputably  at  the 
head  of  it,  rose  in  influence,  and  became  more  and  more 
an  object  of  popular  attention. 

It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1833  that  we  first  saw 
Carrel.     He  was  then  at  the  height  of  his  reputation ; 


ARMAND    CARREL.  287 

and  prosperity  had  shed  upon  him,  as  it  oftenest  does 
upon  the  strongest  minds,  only  its  best  influences.  An 
extract  from  a  letter,  written  not  long  after,  will  convey 
in  its  freshness  the  impression  which  he  then  communi- 
cated to  an  English  observer  :  — 

"  I  knew  Carrel  as  the  most  powerful  journalist  in  France ; 
sole  manager  of  a  paper,  which,  while  it  keeps  aloof  from  all 
coterie  influence,  and  from  the  actively  revolutionary  part  of 
the  republican  body,  has  for  some  time  been  avowedly  republi- 
can ;  and  I  knew  that  he  was  considered  a  vigorous,  energetic 
man  of  action,  who  would  always  have  courage  and  conduct  in 
an  emergency.  Knowing  thus  much  of  him,  I  was  ushered  into 
the  'National'  office,  where  I  found  six  or  seven  of  the  innume 
rable  redactenrs  w-ho  belong  to  a  French  paper,  —  tall,  dark 
haired  men,  with  formidable  mustaches,  and  looking  fiercely 
republican.  Carrel  was  not  there ;  and,  after  waiting  some 
time,  I  was  introduced  to  a  slight  young  man,  with  extremely 
polished  manners,  no  mustaches  at  all,  and  apparently  fitter  for 
a  drawing-room  than  a  camp :  this  was  the  commander-in-chief 
of  those  formidable-looking  champions.  But  it  was  impossible 
to  be  five  minutes  in  his  company  without  perceiving  that  he 
was  accustomed  to  ascendency,  and  so  accustomed  as  not  to 
feel  it.  Instead  of  fhe  eagerness  and  impetuosity  which  one 
finds  in  most  Frenchmen,  his  manner  is  extremely  deliberate : 
without  any  affectation,  he  speaks  in  a  sort  of  measured 
cadence,  and  in  a  manner  of  which  Mr.  Carlyle's .words,  'quiet 
emphasis,'  are  more  characteristic  than  of  any  man  I  know. 
There  is  the  same  quiet  emphasis  in  his  writings :  a  man 
singularly  free,  if  we  may  trust  appearances,  from  self-con- 
sciousness ;  simple,  graceful,  at  times  almost  infantinely 
playful,  and  combining  perfect  self-reliance  with  the  most 
unaffected  modesty;  always  pureuing  a  path  of  his  own  ('Je 
n'aime  pas,'  said  he  to  me  one  day, '  a  marcher  en  troupeau')  \ 
occupying  a  midway  position ;   facing  one  way  towards  the 


288  ARMAND    CARREL. 

supporters  of  monarchy  and  an  aristocratic  limitation  of  the  suf- 
frage, with  whom  he  will  have  no  compromise,  —  on  the  other 
towards  the  extreme  republicans,  who  have  anti-property 
doctrines,  and,  instead  of  his  United-States  Republic,  want  a 
republic  after  the  fashion  of  the  Convention,  with  something 
like  a  dictatorship  in  their  own  hands.  He  calls  himself  a 
Conservative  Republican  {V opinion  repuhlicaine  conservatnce)  : 
not  but  that  he  sees  plainly  that  the  present  constitution  of 
society  admits  of  many  improvements,  but  he  thinks  they  can 
only  take  place  gradually,  or  at  least  that  philosophy  has  not 
yet  matured  them  ;  and  he  would  rather  hold  back  than  accel- 
erate the  pohtical  revolution  which  he  thinks  inevitable,  in 
order  to  leave  time  for  ripening  those  great  questions,  chiefly 
affecting  the  constitution  of  property  and  the  condition  of  the 
working  classes,  which  would  press  for  a  solution  if  a  revolu- 
tion were  to  take  place.  As  for  himself,  he  says  that  he  is 
not  un  homme  special;  that  his  metier  de  journaliste  engrosses 
him  too  much  to  enable  him  to  study ;  and  that  he  is  profoundly 
ignorant  of  much  upon  which  he  would  have  to  decide  if  he 
were  in  power ;  and  could  do  nothing  but  bring  together  a 
body  genuinely  representative  of  the  people,  and  assist  in 
carrying  into  execution  the  dictates  of  their  united  wisdom. 
This  is  modest  enough  in  the  man  who  would  certainly  be 
President  of  the  Republic,  if  there  were  a  republic  within  five 
years,  and  the  extreme  party  did  not  get  the  upper  hand.  He 
seems  to  know  well  what  he  does  know :  I  have  met  with  no 
such  views  of  the  French  Revolution  in  any  book  as  I  have 
heard  from  him." 

This  is  a  first  impression  ;  but  it  was  confirmed  by  all 
that  we  afterwards  saw  and  learnt.  Of  all  distin- 
guished Frenchmen  whom  we  have  known,  Carrel,  in 
manner,  answered  most  to  Coleridge's  definition  of  the 
manner  of  a  gentleman,  —  that  which  shows  respect  to 
others  in  such  a  way  as  implies  an  equally  habitual  and 


ARMAND   CARREL.  289 

secure  reliance  on  their  respect  to  himself.  Carrel's 
manner  was  not  of  the  self-asserting  kind,  like  that  of 
many  of  the  most  high-bred  Frenchmen,  who  succeed 
perfectly  in  producing  the  effect  they  desire,  but  who 
seem  to  be  desiring  it :  Carrel  seemed  never  to  concern 
himself  about  it,  but  to  trust  to  what  he  was  for  what 
he  would  appear  to  be.  This  had  not  always  been  the 
case  ;  and  we  learn  from  M.  Nisard,  that,  in  the  time  of 
his  youth  and  obscurity,  he  was  sensitive  as  to  the  con- 
sideration shown  him,  and  susceptible  of  offence.  It 
was  not  in  this  only  that  he  was  made  better  by  being 
better  appreciated.  Unlike  vulgar  "minds,  whose  faults, 
says  M.  Nisard,  "  augment  in  proportion  as  their  talents 
obtain  them  indulgence,  it  was  evident  to  all  his  friends 
that  his  faults  diminished  in  proportion  as  his  brilliant 
qualities,  and  the  celebrity  they  gave  him,  increased.'* 

One  of  the  qualities  which  we  were  most  struck  with 
in  Carrel  was  his  modesty.  It  was  not  that  common 
modesty,  which  is  but  the  negation  of  arrogance  and 
overweening  pretension.  It  was  the  higher  quality,  of 
which  that  is  but  a  small  part.  It  was  the  modesty 
of  one  who  knows  accurately  what  he  is,  and  what  he  is 
equal  to  ;  never  attempts  any  thing  which  requires  quali- 
ties that  he  has  not ;  and  admires  and  values  no  less,  and 
more  if  it  be  reasonable  to  do  so,  the  thipgs  which  he 
cannot  do,  than  those  which  he  can.  It  was  most 
imaffectedly  that  he  disclaimed  all  mastery  of  the 
details  of  politics.  I  understand,  he  said,  the  prin- 
ciples of  a  representative  government.  But  he  said, 
and  we  believe  him  to  have  sincerely  thought,  that, 
when  once  a  genuinely  representative  legislature  should 
have   been   assembled,   his   function   would   be  at   an 

VOL.  I.  19 


290  ARMAND    CARREL. 

end.  It  would  belong  to  more  instructed  men,  he 
thought,  to  make  laws  for  France :  he  could  at  most 
be  of  use  in  defending  her  from  attack,  and  in  mak- 
ing her  laws  obeyed.  In  this  Carrel  did  himself  less 
than  justice  ;  for  though  he  was  not,  as  he  truly  said, 
un  homme  special,  though  he  had  not  profoundly 
studied  political  economy  or  jurisprudence,  no  man  ever 
had  a  greater  gift  of  attaching  to  himself  men  of  special 
acquirements,  or  could  discern  more  surely  what  man 
was  fit  for  what  thing.  And  that  is  the  exact  quality 
wanted  in  the  head  of  an  administration.  Like  Mira- 
beau.  Carrel  had  a  natural  gift  for  being  Prime  Minis- 
ter :  like  Mirabeau,  he  could  make  men  of  all  sorts,  even 
foreigners ,  and  men  who  did  not  think  themselves  inferior 
to  him,  but  only  different,  feel  that  they  could  have  been 
loyal  to  him  ;  that  they  could  have  served  and  followed 
him  in  life  and  death,  and  marched  under  his  orders  wher- 
ever he  chose  to  lead ;  sure,  with  him,  of  being  held  worth 
whatever  they  were  worth,  of  having  their  counsels 
listened  to  by  an  ear  capable  of  appreciating  them,  of 
having  the  post  assigned  to  them  for  which  they  were 
fittest,  and  a  commander  to  whom  they  could  trust  for 
bringing  them  off  in  any  embarrassment  in  which  he 
could  ever  engage  them. 

Shortly  after  we  first  knew  Carrel,  we  had  an  op- 
portunity of  judging  him  in  one  of  the  most  trying 
situations  in  which  the  leading  organ  of  a  movement 
party  could  be  placed ;  and  the  manner  in  which  he 
conducted  himself  in  it  gave  us  the  exalted  idea, 
which  we  never  afterwards  lost,  both  of  his  nobleness 
of  character,  and  of  his  eminent  talents  as  a  political 
leader. 


AKMAND   CARREL.  291 

A  small  and  extreme  section  of  the  republican  body, 
composed  of  men,  some  of  them  highly  accomplished, 
many  of  them  pure  in  purpose,  and  full  of  courage  and 
enthusiasm,  but  without  that  practicalness  which  dis- 
tinguished Carrel,  —  more  highly  endowed  with  talent 
for  action  th«n  with  judgment  for  it,  —  had  formed 
themselves  into  a  society,  which  placed  itself  in  com- 
munication with  the  discontented  of  the  laboring  class- 
es, and  got  under  their  command  the  greater  part  of  the 
insurrectionary  strength  of  the  party.*  These  men 
raised  the  cry  of  social  reform,  and  a  modification  of 
the  constitution  of  property,  —  ideas  which  the  St.  Si- 
monians  had  set  afloat,  in  connection  with  a  definite 
scheme,  and  with  speculative  views  the  most  enlarged, 
and  in  several  respects  the  most  just,  that  had  ever 
been  connected  with  Utopianism.  But  these  repub- 
licans had  no  definite  plan  :  the  ideas  were  comparative- 
ly vague  and  indeterminate  in  their  minds,  yet  were 
sincerely  entertained,  and  did  not,  whatever  ignorant 
or  cowardly  persons  might  suppose,  mean  plunder  for 

*  The  following  extract  from  the  letter  already  quoted  contains  a  picture 
of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  these  men.  We  have  no  reason  to  believe 
that  he  is  a  specimen  of  the  rest;  for  he  is  as  completely  an  individual  as 
Carrel:  "A  man  whose  name  is  energy;  who  cannot  ask  you  the  commonest 
question  but  in  so  decided  a  manner  that  he  makes  you  start  ;  who  im- 
presses you  with  a  sense  of  irresistible  power  and  indomitable  will:  you 
might  fancy  him  an. incarnation  of  Satan,  if  he  were  your  enemy,  or  the 
enemy  of  your  party,  and  if  you  had  not  associated  with  him,  and  seen  how 
full  of  sweetness  and  amiableness  and  gentleness  he  is.  .  .  .  His  notion 
of  duty  is  that  of  a  Stoic;  he  conceives  it  as  something  quite  infinite,  and, 
having  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  happiness,  something  immeasurably 
above  it:  a  kind  of  half-Manichean  in  his  views  of  the  universe.  According 
to  him,  man's  life  consists  of  one  perennial  and  intense  struggle  against 
the  principle  of  evil,  which,  but  for  that  struggle,  would  wholly  overwhelm 
him:  generation  after  generation  carries  on  this  battle  with  little  success 
as  yet.    He  believes  in  perfectibility  and  progressivencsp,  but  thinks  that 


292  AKMAND    CARREL. 

themselves  and  their  associates.  The  society  published 
a  manifesto,  in  which  these  aspu-ations  were  dimly 
visible,  and  in  which  they  reprinted,  with  their  adhe- 
sion, a  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  proposed  by 
Robespierre  in  the  National  Convention,  and  by  that 
body  rejected.  This  document  was  harmless  enough, 
and  we  could  not  see  in  it  any  of  the  anti-property 
doctrines  that  appeared  to  be  seen  by  everybody  else ; 
for  Paris  was  convulsed  with  apprehension  on  the 
subject.  But  whether  it  was  the  name  of  Robespierre, 
or  the  kind  of  superstition  which  attaches  to  the  idea  of 
property  in  France,  or  that  the  manifesto  was  considered 
a  preliminary  to  worse  things  supposed  to  be  meditated 
by  its  authors,  the  alarm  of  the  middle  classes  was 
now  thoroughly  excited  :  they  became  willing  to  join 
with  any  men  and  any  measures,  in  order  to  put  down, 
not  only  this,  but  every  other  kind  of  republicanism ; 
and  from  this  time,  in  reality,  dates  the  passionate 
resistance  to  the  democratic  movement,  which,  with  the 
assistance  of  Fieschi,  was  improved  into  the  laws  of 

hitherto  progress  has  consisted  only  in  removing  some  of  the  impediments 
to  good,  not  in  realizing  the  good  itself;  that,  nevertheless,  the  only  satis- 
faction which  man  can  realize  for  himself  is  in  battling  with  this  evil  prin- 
ciple, and  overpowering  it;  that,  after  evils  have  accumulated  for  centuries, 
there  sometimes  comes  one  great  clearing-ofF,  one  day  of  reckoning,  called 
a  revolution ;  that  it  is  only  on  such  rare  occasions,  very  rarely  indeed  on 
any  others,  that  good  men  get  into  power,  and  then  they  ought  to  seize  the 
opportunity  for  doing  all  they  can;  that  any  government  which  is  boldly 
attacked,  by  ever  so  small  a  minority,  may  be  overthrown ;  and  that  is  his 
hope  with  respect  to  the  present  government.  He  is  much  more  accom- 
plished than  most  of  the  political  men  I  have  seen;  has  a  wider  range  of 
ideas;  converses  on  art,  and  most  subjects  of  general  interest;  always  throw- 
ing all  he  has  to  say  into  a  few  brief  energetic  sentences,  as  if  it  was  con- 
trary to  his  nature  to  expend  one  superfluous  word." 

There  can  be  no  indelicacy  in  now  saying,  that  the  original  of  this  picture 
was  Godefroi  Cavaignac. 


ARMAlfD   CARREL.  293 

September,  1835  ;  by  which  laws,  and  by  the  imprison- 
ment and  exile  of  its  most  active  members,  the  repub- 
lican party  has  been  for  the  present  silenced. 

The  conduct  by  which  the  prospects  of  the  popular 
party  were  thus  compromised,  Carrel  had  from  the 
first  disapproved.  The  constitution  of  property  ap- 
peared to  him  a  subject  for  speculative  philosophers, 
not  for  the  mass  :  he  did  not  think  that  the  present 
idea  of  property,  and  the  present  arrangements  of  it, 
would  last  fgr  ever  unchanged,  through  the  progressive 
changes  of  society  and  civilization ;  but  he  beheved 
that  any  improvement  of  them  would  be  the  work  of 
a  generation,  and  not  of  an  hour.  Against  the  other 
peculiar  views  of  this  revolutionary  party  he  had  com- 
bated both  in  private  and  in  the  "National."  He  had 
taken  no  part  in  their  projects  for  arriving  at  a  republic 
by  an  insurrection.  He  had  set  his  fsice  against  their 
notion  of  governing  by  an  active  minority,  for  the  good 
of  the  majority,  but,  if  necessary,  in  opposition  to  its 
will,  and  by  a  provisional  despotism  that  was  to  ter- 
minate some  day  in  a  free  government.  A  free,  full, 
and  fair  representation  of  the  people  was  his  object ; 
full  opportunity  to  the  nation  to  declare  its  will, — the 
perfect  submission  of  individual  crotchets  to  that  will. 
And,  without  condemning  the  Republic  of  the  Con- 
vention under  the  extraordinary  circumstances  which 
accompanied  its  brief  career,  he  preferred  to  cite  as  an 
example  the  Republic  of  the  United  States ;  not  that 
he  thought  it  perfect,  nor  even  a  model  which  France 
ought  in  all  respects  to  imitate,  but  because  it  presented, 
or  seemed  to  present,  to  France  an  example  of  what  she 
most  wanted,  — protection  to  all  parties  alike,  limitation 


294  ARMAND    CARREL. 

of  the  power  of  the  magistrate,  and  fairness  as  between 
the  majority  and  the  minority. 

In  the  newspaper  warfare,  of  an  unusually  vehement 
character,  stirred  up  by  the  manifesto  of  the  revolu- 
tionary republicans.  Carrel  was  the  last  of  the  journalists 
to-  declare  himself.  He  took  some  days  to  consider 
what  position  it  most  became  him  to  assume.  He  did 
not  agree  in  the  conclusions  of  this  party,  while  he  had 
just  enough  of  their  premises  in  common  with  them 
to  expose  him  to  misrepresentation.  It  was  incumbent 
on  him  to  rescue  himself,  and  the  great  majority  of  the 
popular  party,  from  responsibility  for  opinions  which 
they  did  not  share,  and  the  imputation  of  which  was 
calculated  to  do  them  so  much  injury.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  party  could  not  afford  to  lose  these  able  and 
energetic  men,  and  the  support  of  that  portion  of  the 
working  classes  who  had  given  their  confidence  to  them. 
The  men,  too,  were  many  of  them  his  friends  :  he  knew 
them  to  be  good  men,  superior  men,  men  who  were  an 
honor  to  their  opinions ;  and  he  could  not  brook  the 
cowardice  of  letting  them  be  run  down  by  a  popular 
cry.  After  mature  deliberation,  he  published  in  the 
"National"  a  series  of  articles,  admirable  for  their 
nobleness  of  feeling  and  delicacy  and  dexterity  in  ex- 
pression, in  which,  without  a  single  subterfuge,  with- 
out deviating  in  a  word  from  the  most  open  and 
straightforward  sincerity,  Jie  probed  the  question  to  the 
bottom,  and  contrived  with  the  most  exquisite  address 
completely  to  separate  himself  from  all  that  was  objec- 
tionable in  the  opinions  of  the  manifesto,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  present  both  the  opinions  and  the  men  in 
the   most  advantageous   lisrht,   in  which,  without  dis- 


ARMAND    CARREL.  295 

guising  his  disagreement,  it  was  possible  to  place  them. 
These  were  triumphs  which  belonged  only  to  Carrel :  it 
was  on  such  occasions  that  he  showed,  though  in  a 
bloodless  field,  the  qualities  of  a  consummate  general. 

In  the  deliberations  of  the  republican  party  among 
themselves.  Carrel  was  more  explicit.  The  society 
which  issued  the  manifesto,  and  which  was  called  the 
Society  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  made  an  overture  to  a 
larger  society,  —  that  for  the  Protection  of  the  Liberty 
of  the  Press,  which  represented  all  the  shades  of  repub- 
licanism,—  and  invited  them  to  adopt  the  manifesto. 
The  committee  or  council  of  the  association  was  convened 
to  take  the  proposal  into  consideration ;  and  Carrel, 
though  on  ordinary  occasions  he  absented  himself  from 
the  proceedings  of  such  bodies,  attended.  At  this 
deliberation  we  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  present ;  and 
we  shall  never  forget  the  impression  we  received  of  the 
talents  both  of  Carrel,  and  of  the  leader  of  the  more 
extreme  party,  M.  Cavaignac.  Carrel  displayed  the 
same  powerful  good  sense,  and  the  same  spirit  of 
conciliation,  in  discussing  with  that  party  his  differences 
from  them,  which  he  had  shown  in  his  apology  for  them 
to  the  public.  With  the  superiority  of  a  really  com- 
prehensive mind,  he  placed  himself  at  their  point  of 
view ;  laid  down  in  more  express  and  bolder  terms 
than  they  had  done  themselves,  and  in  a  manner  which 
startled  men  who  were  esteemed  to  go  much  farther  than 
Carrel,  the  portion  of  philosophic  truth  which  there  was 
in  the  premises  from  which  they  had  drawn  their  erro- 
neous conclusions ;  and  left  them  less  dissatisfied  than 
pleased,  that  one  who  differed  from  them  so  widely 
agreed  with  them  in  so  much  more  than  they  expected. 


296  ARMAND    CARREL. 

and  could  so  powerfully  advocate  a  portion  of  their 
views.  The  result  was  that  Carrel  was  chosen  to  draw 
up  a  report  to  the  society,  on  the  manifesto,  and  on  the 
invitation  to  adopt  it.  His  report,  in  which  he  utters 
his  whole  mind  on  the  new  ideas  of  social  reform  con- 
sidered in  reference  to  practice,  remained  unpublished. 
Carrel  did  not  proclaim  unnecessarily  to  the  world  the 
differences  in  his  own  party,  but  preferred  the  prudent 
maxim  of  Napoldon,  H  faut  laver  noire  linge  sale  chez 
nous.  But  at  a  later  period,  when  the  chiefs  of  the 
extreme  party  were  in  prison  or  in  banishment,  the  re- 
publican cause  for  the  present  manifestly  lost,  himself 
publicly  calumniated,  (for  from  what  calumny  is  he 
sacred  whom  a  government  detests  !)  as  having  indi- 
rectly instigated  the  Fieschi  atrocity,  and  his  house 
searched  for  papers  on  pretence  of  ascertaining  if  he 
was  concerned  in  it,  which  the  cowardly  hypocrites  who 
sought  to  involve  him  in  the  odium  never  themselves 
even  in  imagination  conceived  to  be  possible,  —  at  this 
time,  when  no  one  could  any  longer  be  injured  by  set- 
ting his  past  conduct  in  its  true  light.  Carrel  published 
his  Report  on  the  Robespierre  Manifesto ;  and,  under 
the  title  of  Extrait  du  dossier  d^un  prevenu  de 
complicite  morale  dans  Vattentat  du  28  Juillet,  it 
subsists  for  any  one  to  read,  a  monument  at  once  of 
the  far-sighted  intellect  of  Carrel,  and  of  his  admirable 
skill  in  expression. 

During  the  rapid  decline  of  the  republican  party,  we 
know  little  of  what  passed  in  Carrel's  mind :  but  our 
knowledge  of  him  would  have  led  us  to  surmise,  what 
M.  Nisard  states  to  be  the  fact,  that  he  became  sensible 
of  the  hopelessness  of  the  cause,  and  only  did  not  aban- 


ARMAND   CARREL.  297 

don  the  advocacy  of  it  as  an  immediate  object  from  a 
sense  of  what  was  due  to  the  consistency  which  a  public 
man  is  bound  to  maintain  before  the  public,  when  it  is 
the  sacrifice  of  his  interest  only,  and  not  of  his  honesty, 
that  it  requires  of  him ;  and  of  what  was  due  to  the 
simple-minded  men  whom  he  had  helped  to  compro- 
mise, and  whose  whole  stay  and  support,  the  faith 
which  kept  them  honest  men,  and  which  saved  them 
from  despair,  would  have  expired  within  them  if  Carrel 
had  deserted  them.  As  is  beautifully  said  by  M.  Ni- 
sard,  — 

"  To  resist  your  better  judgment ;  never  to  give  way,  nor 
allow  your  misgivings  to  become  visible ;  to  stand  firm  to 
principles  proclaimed  at  some  critical  moment,  though  they 
were  no  more  than  sudden  impressions  or  rash  hopes  which 
impatience  converted  into  principles ;  not  to  abandon  simple 
and  ardent  minds  in  the  path  in  which  you  have  yourself 
engaged  them,  and  to  whom  it  is  all  in  all ;  purposely  to 
repress  your  doubts  and  hesitations,  and  coldly  to  call  down 
upon  your  own  head  fruitless  and  premature  perils,  in  a  cause 
in  which  you  are  no  longer  enthusiastic,  in  order  to  keep  up 
the  confidence  of  your  followers,  —  such  is  the  price  which 
must  be  paid  for  being  the  acknowledged  chief  of  an  opinion 
at  war  with  an  established  government:  to  do  this,  and  to 
do  it  so  grticefully  and  unostentatiously,  that  those  who  recog- 
nize you  as  their  chief  shall  pardon  you  your  superiority  to 
them ;  and  with  a  talent  so  out  of  comparison,  that  no  self- 
love  in  the  party  you  represent  can  conceive  the  idea  of 
equalling  you.  During  more  than  four  years,  such  was  the 
task  Carrel  had  to  fulfil ;  and  he  fulfilled  it :  never  for  a  single 
momer  did  he  fall  below  his  position.  He  never  incited 
those  whom  he  was  not  resolved  to  follow ;  and  in  many  cases 
where  the  impulse  had  been  given  not  by  him,  but  against  his 
judgment,  he  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  those  whom  he 


298  ARMAND    CARREL. 

had  not  instigated.  Tlie  same  man,  whose  modesty  in  ordinary 
circumstances  allowed  the  title  of  chief  of  the  republican  opin- 
ion to  be  disputed  to  him,  seized  upon  it  in  time  of  danger 
as  a  sign  by  which  the  stroke  of  the  enemy  might  be  directed 
to  him.  He  was  like  a  general,  who,  having  by  his  courage 
and  talents  advanced  to  the  first  rank  of  the  army,  allows  his 
merits  to  be  contested  in  the  jealousies  and  gossipings  of  the 
barrack,  but  in  a  desperate  affair  assumes  the  command  in 
chief  by  the  right  of  the  bravest  and  most  able." 

The  doubts  and  misgivings,  however,  which  Can'el 
is  stated  to  have  so  painfully  experienced,  never  affected 
the  truth  of  his  republican  principles,  but  at  most  their 
immediate  applicability.  The  very  foundation  of  Car- 
rel's character  was  sincerity,  and  singleness  of  purpose  ; 
and  nothing  would  have  induced  him  to  continue  pro- 
fessing to  others  convictions  which  he  had  ceased  to 
entertain. 

While  Carrel  never  abandoned  republicanism,  it 
necessarily,  after  the  laws  of  September,  ceased  to  be  so 
prominent  as  before  in  his  journal.  He  felt  the  neces- 
sity of  rallying  under  one  standard  all  who  were  agreed 
in  the  essential  point,  —  opposition  to  the  oligarchy  ;  and 
he  was  one  of  the  most  earnest  in  demanding  an  exten- 
sion of  the  suffrage;  that  vital  point,  the  all-importance 
of  which  France  has  been  so  slow  to  recognize,  and 
which  it  is  so  much  to  be  regretted  that  he  had  not 
chosen  from  the  first,  instead  of  republicanism,  to  be 
the  immediate  aim  of  his  political  life. 

But  the  greatest  disappointment  which  Carrel  suffered 
was  the  defeat,  not  of  republicanism,  but  of  what 
M.  Nisard  calls  his  theorie  du  droit  coin^nun;  those 
ideas  of  moderation  in  victory,  of  respect  for  the  law, 


ARMAND    CARREL.  299 

and  for  the  rights  of  the  weaker  party,  so  much  more 
wanted  in  France  than  any  political  improvements 
which  are  possible  where  those  ideas  are  not. 

"  I  affirm,"  says  M.  Nisard,  "  that  I  have  never  seen  him 
in  real  bitterness  of  heart,  but  for  what  he  had  to  suffer  on 
this  point ;  and  on  this  subject  alone  his  disenchantment  was 
distressing.  His  good  sense,  the  years  he  had  before  him,  the 
chapter  of  accidents,  would  have  given  him  patience  as  to  his 
own  prospects ;  but  nothing  could  console  him  for  seeing  that 
noble  scheme  of  reciprocal  forbearance  compromised,  and 
thrown  back  into  the  class  of  doctrines  for  ever  disputable, 
by  all  parties  equally,  —  by  the  government,  by  the  country, 
and  by  his  own  friends.  There,  in  fact,  was  the  highest  and 
truest  inspiration  of  his  good  sense,  the  most  genuine  instinct 
of  his  generous  nature.  All  Carrel  was  in  that  doctrine. 
Never  would  he  have  proved  false  to  that  noble  emanation  of 
his  intellect  and  of  his  heart.  .  .  .  The  Revolution  of  July,  so 
extraordinary  among  revolutions  from  the  spectacle  of  a  peo- 
ple leaving  the  vanquished  at  full  liberty  to  inveigh  against, 
and  even  to  ridicule,  the  victory,  gave  ground  to  hope  for  a 
striking  and  definitive  return  to  the  principle  of  equal  law. 
Carrel  made  himself  the  organ  of  this  hope,  and  the  theorist 
of  this  doctrine.  He  treated  the  question  with  the  vigor  and 
clearness  which  were  usual  with  him.  He  opposed  to  the 
examples,  so  numerous  in  the  last  fifty  years,  of  governments 
which  successively  perished  by  overstraining  their  powers, 
the  idea  of  a  government  offering  securities  to  all  parties 
against  its  own  lawful  and  necessary  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion. He  invoked  practical  reasons  exclusively,  denying  him- 
self rigidly  the  innocent  aid  of  all  the  language  of  passion, 
not  to  expose  his  noble  theory  to  the  ironical  designation  of 
Utopianism.  It  was  these  views  which  gave  Carrel  so  many 
friends  in  all  parts  of  France,  and  in  all  places  where  the 
'  National '  penetrated.      There   is,   apart   from   all    political 


300  ARMAND    CARREL. 

parties,  a  party  composed  of  all  those  who  are  either  kept  by 
circumstances  out  of  the  active  sphere  of  politics,  or  who  are 
too  enhghtened  to  fling  themselves  into  it  in  the  train  of  a 
leader  who  is  only  reconimended  by  successes  in  parliament 
or  in  the  press.  How  many  men,  weary  of  disputes  about 
forms  of  government,  —  incredulous  even  to  Carrel's  admira- 
ble apologies  for  the  American  system,  —  quitting  the  shadow 
for  the  substance,  ranged  themselves  under  that  banner  of 
equal  justice  which  Carrel  had  raised,  and  to  which  he  would 
have  adhered,  at  the  expense,  if  necessary,  even  of  his  indi- 
vidual opinions !  Testimonies  of  adhesion  came  in  to  him 
from  all  quarters,  which  for  a  moment  satisfied  his  utmost 
wishes ;  and  I  saw  him  resigning  himself,  to  be,  for  an  inde- 
terminate period,  the  first  speculative  writer  of  his  country. 
But  errors  in  which  all  parties  had  their  share  soon  cooled 
him.  It  was  a  severe  shock.  Carrel  had  faith  in  these 
generous  views ;  he  had  adopted  them  with  stronger  convic- 
tion, perhaps,  than  his  republican  theories,  to  which  he  had 
committed  himself  hastily,  and  under  the  influence  of  tem- 
porary events,  rather  than  of  quiet  and  deliberate  meditar 
tions.  ...  It  is  more  painful  surely  to  a  generous  mind  to 
doubt  the  possibility  of  a  generous  policy,  than  to  the  leader 
of  a  party  to  doubt  that  his  opinions  have  a  chance  of  pre- 
vailing.    Carrel  had  both  disappointments  at  once. 

"  The  affliction  of  Carrel  was  irreparable  from  the  moment 
when  he  remained  the  sole  defender  of  the  common  rights  of 
all,  between  the  nation  which  from  fear  made  a  sacrifice 
of  them  to  the  government,  and  his  own  party,  which  cher- 
ished secretly  thoughts  inconsistent  with  them.  We  had  a 
long  conversation  on  the  subject,  a  few  months  before  his 
death,  in  a  walk  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  I  perceived  that 
he  had  almost  renounced  his  doctrine  as  a  principle  capable 
of  present  application :  he  at  most  adhered  to  it  as  a  Utopia, 
from  pure  generosity,  and  perhaps  also  from  the  feeling  of  his 
own  strength.     Carrel  believed,  that,  if  his  party  came  into 


ARMAND    CARREL.  301 

power,  he  would  have  the  force  to  resist  the  temptatio  i  of 
arbitrary  authority,  and  not  to  accept  it  even  from  the  hands 
of  a  majority  offering  it  to  him  in  the  name  of  his  country. 
But  a  cause  deferred  was  to  him  a  lost  cause.  His  doubts 
were  equivalent  to  a  defeat.  Though  this  principle  was  the 
most  disinterested  conviction  of  his  mind,  and  the  best  im- 
pulse of  his  heart,  the  theories  of  men  of  action  always  imply- 
in  their  own  minds  the  hope  of  a  prompt  reduction  to  practice. 
From  the  moment  when  his  doctrine  failed  as  a  practicable 
policy,  it  could  no  longer  be  a  doctrine  for  him.  Towards 
the  end  of  his  life,  he  spoke  of  it  only  as  a  result  of  the 
progress  of  improvement,  which  it  would  not  be  his  fate  to 
live  to  see,  and  which  perhaps  would  never  be  arrived  at." 

We  can  conceive  few  things  more  melancholy  than 
the  spectacle  of  one  of  tlie  noblest  men  in  France,  if 
not  the  noblest,  dying  convinced  against  his  will,  that 
his  country  is  incapable  of  freedom  ;  and,  under  what- 
soever institutions,  has  only  the  choice,  what  man  or 
what  party  it  will  be  under  the  despotism  of.  But  we 
have  not  Carrel's  deliberate  opinion  :  we  have  but  his 
feelings  in  the  first  agony  of  his  disenchantment.  That 
multitude  of  impartial  men  in  all  quarters  of  France, 
who  responded  for  a  short  time  so  cordially  to  his  voice, 
will  again  claim  the  liberties,  which,  in  a  moment  of 
panic,  they  have  surrendered  to  a  government  they 
neither  love  nor  respect,  and  which  they  submit  to,  and 
even  support,  against  its  enemies,  solely  in  despair  of  a 
better. 

But  Carrel  was  not  one  of  those  whom  disappoint- 
ment paralyzes  :  unsuccessful  in  one  worthy  object,  he 
always  found  another.  The  newspaper  press,  gagged 
by  the  September  laws,  no  longer  afforded  him  the  same 


302  ARMA^^)  carrel. 

instrument  of  power  ;  and  he  meditated  a  total  or  partial 
retirement  from  it,  either  to  recruit  himself  by  study, 
se  retremper  par  V etude ^  for  which,  even  at  an  earlier 
period,  he  had  expressed  to  us  an  earnest  longing,  or  to 
write  what  he  had  for  some  time  had  in  view, — the 
History  of  Napoleon.  But  he  would  have  been  called 
from  these  pursuits  into  a  more  active  life  :  at  the  im- 
pending general  election,  he  would  have  been  chosen  a 
deputy ;  having  already  been  once  put  up  without  his 
knowledge,  and  defeated  only  by  one  vote.  What 
course  he  would  have  struck  out  for  himself  in  the 
Chamber,  we  shall  never  know ;  but  it  is  not  possible 
to  doubt  that  it  would  have  been  an  original  one,  and 
that  it  would  have  been  brilliant,  and  most  beneficial  to 
his  country.  So  immensely  the  superior  of  all  his 
rivals  in  the  qualities  which  create  influence,  he  would 
probably  have  drawn  round  him  by  degrees  all  the  sec- 
tions of  the  popular  party ;  would  have  given,  if  any 
one  could,  unity,  decision,  and  definiteness  to  their 
vague  plans  and  divided  counsels ;  and  the  destiny 
which  he  could  not  conquer  for  himself,  as  President  of 
a  Republic,  he  might  one  day  have  gloriously  fulfilled 
as  minister  under  a  reformed  legislature,  if  any  such 
reform  could  in  France  (which  he  regarded  as  impossi- 
ble) render  royalty  compatible  with  the  prevalence  of 
the  popular  interest.  These  are  vain  dreams  now  ;  but 
the  time  was  when  it  was  not  foolish  to  indulge  in  them. 
Such  dreams  were  the  comfort  of  those  who  knew  him, 
and  who  knew  how^  ill  his  country  can  supply  his  place. 
He  was  at  once  the  Achilles  and  the  Ulysses  of  the 
democratic  party  ;  and  the  star  of  hope  for  France,  in 
any  new  convulsions,  was  extinguished  when  Carrel  died. 


ARMAND    CARREL.  303 

It  is  bitter  to  lose  such  a  man  ;  bitterest  of  all  to  lose 
him  in  a  miserable  duel.  But  ill  shall  it  fare  with  the 
government  which  can  rejoice  in  the  death  of  such  an 
enemy ;  and  the  time  may  come  when  it  would  give  its 
most  precious  treasures  to  recall  from  the  grave  the 
victim,  whom,  whether  intentionally  on  its  pail  or  not, 
its  enmity  has  sent  thither.  The  heir  to  the  French 
throne  is  reported  to  have  said  of  Carrel's  death,  that  it 
was  a  loss  to  all  parties  :  he,  at  least,  will  probably  live 
to  find  it  so.  Such  a  crovernment  as  that  now  existing 
in  France  cannot  last :  and  whether  it  end  peacefully 
or  violently  ;  whether  the  return  tide  of  public  opinion 
shall  bear  the  present  reigning  family  aloft  on  its  surface, 
or  whelm  them  in  its  depths, — bitterly  will  that  man 
be  missed,  who  alone,  perliaps,  would  have  been  capa- 
ble of  saying  to  that  tremendous  power,  "  Thus  far  shalt 
thou  go,  and  no  farther."  There  are  in  France  philoso- 
phers superior  to  Carrel,  but  no  man  known  by  such 
past  services,  equal  like  him  to  the  great  practical  ques- 
tions which  are  coming,  and  whose  whole  nature  and 
character  speak  out,  like  his,  to  the  best  qualities  and  no- 
blest sjnnpathies  of  the  French  mind.  He  had  all  that 
was  necessary  to  give  him  an  advocate  in  every  French 
breast,  and  to  make  all  young  and  ardent  Frenchmen 
see  in  him  the  ideal  of  their  own  aspirations,  —  the 
expression  of  what,  in  their  best  moments,  they  would 
wish  to  be. 

His  death  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  vulgar 
deaths  of  those,  who,  hemmed  in  between  two  coward- 
ices, can  resist  the  fear  of  death,  but  not  the  meaner 
fear  of  the  tongues  of  their  fellow-creatures.  His  duel 
was  a  consequence  of  the  system  which  he  adopted  for 


304  ABMAND   CARREL. 

repelling  the  insults  to  which,  as  a  journalist  identifying 
himself  with  his  journal,  he  was  peculiarly  exposed ; 
and  which,  not  only  for  his  influence  as  a  public  man, 
but  for  the  respectability  of  the  press,  and  for  preserving 
that  high  tone  of  public  discussion  from  which  he  him- 
self never  swerved,  he  thought  it  necessary  not  to  pass 
unpunished.  His  system,  alas  I  is  sufficiently  refuted 
by  its  having  cost  so  precious  a  life  ;  but  it  was  his  sys- 
tem. "He  often  repeated,"  says  M.  Littre,  "  that  the 
'National'  had  no  j^^^ocureu}-  du  roi  to  defend  it,  and 
that  it  must  be  its  own  defender.  He  was  persuaded, 
too,  that  nothing  gives  more  food  to  political  enmities, 
or  renders  them  more  capable  of  reaching  the  last  ex- 
cesses, than  the  impunity  of  calumny.  He  contended 
that  the  men  of  the  Revolution  had  prepared  their  own 
scaffold  by  not  imposing  silence  on  their  defamers  ;  and, 
had  it  been  necessary  for  him  to  expose  himself  even 
more  than  he  did,  he  never  would  have  suffered,  in 
whatever  situation  he  might  have  been  placed,  that  his 
name  and  character  should  with  impunity  be  trifled 
with.  This  was  his  answer,  when  he  was  blamed  for 
risking  his  life  too  readily  ;  and  now,  when  he  has  fallen, 
it  is  fit,  in  defending  his  memory  from  a  reproach  which 
grief  has  wrung  from  persons  who  loved  him,  to  re<?all 
the  words  he  uttered  on  his  death-bed  :  '  The  standard- 
bearer  of  the  regiment  is  always  the  most  exposed.'" 

He  died  a  martyr  to  the  morality  and  dignity  of  pub- 
lic discussion  ;  and,  though  even  that  cause  would  have 
been  far  better  served  by  his  life  than  by  such  a  death, 
he  was  the  victim  of  his  virtues,  and  of  that  low  state 
of  our  civilization,  after  all  our  boasting,  which  has  not 
yet  contrived  the  means  of  giving,  to  a  man  whose  repu- 


ARMAND    CARREL.  305 

tation  is  important  to  him,  protection  against  insult,  but 
leaves  him  to  seek  reparation  sword  in  hand,  as  in  the 
barbarous  ages.  While  he  lived,  he  did  keep  up  in 
the  press  generally  something  of  that  elevation  of  tone 
which  distinguished  it  under  the  Restoration,  but  which, 
in  the  dehordement  of  political  and  literary  profligacy 
since  the  Revolution  of  1830,  it  had  become  difficult  to 
preserve :  and  all  we  know  of  the  state  of  newspaper 
discussion  since  liis  death  exalts  our  sense  of  the  moral 
influence  which  Carrel  exercised  over  the  press  of 
France. 

Carrel  was  of  middle  height,  slightly  made,  and  very 
graceful.  Like  most  persons  of  really  fine  faculties, 
he  carried  those  faculties  with  him  into  the  smallest 
things ;  and  did  not  disdain  to  excel,  being  qualified  to 
do  so,  in  things  which  are  great  only  to  little  men. 
Even  in  the  details  of  personal  equipments,  his  taste 
was  watched  for  and  followed  by  the  amateurs  of  such 
matters.  He  was  fond  of  all  bodily  exercises  ;  and  had, 
says  M.  Nisard,  un  peu  de  tous  les  goUts  vifs,  more 
or  less  of  all  strong  and  natural  inclinations  ;  as  might 
be  expected  from  his  large  and  vigorous  human  nature, 
the  foundation  of  strength  of  will,  and  which,  combined 
with  intellect  and  with  goodness,  constitutes  greatness. 
He  was  a  human  being  complete  at  all  points,  not  a 
fraction  or  frustum  of  one. 

"The  distinctive  feature  of  his  character,"  says  M. 
Nisard,  "was  his  unbounded  generosity.  In  whatever 
sense  we  understand  that  word,  whether  it  mean  the 
impulse  of  a  man  who  devotes  himself,  or  merely  pecu- 
niary liberality,  the  life  of  Carrel  gives  occasion  for 
VOL.  I.  20 


30 G  ARMAND    CARREL.     * 

applying  it  in  all  its  meanings.  All  the  actions  of  his 
public  life  are  marked  with  the  former  kind  of  generos- 
ity. His  errors  were  generally  acts  of  generosity  ill 
calculated.  As  for  pecuniary  generosity,  no  one  had  it 
more,  or  of  a  better  sort.  Carrel  could  neither  refuse, 
nor  give  little."  There  are  stories  told  of  him  like  those 
told  of  Goldsmith,  or  any  other  person  of  thoughtless 
generosity.  As  is  often  the  case  with  persons  of  strong 
impulses,  he  was  of  a  careless  character,  when  not  under 
excitement ;  and  his  inattention  sometimes  caused  in- 
convenience to  himself,  and  made  him  give  unintentional 
offence  to  others.  But,  on  occasions  which  called  into 
action  his  strong  will,  he  had  the  eye  of  an  eagle  :  "He 
seized  with  a  glance,  as  on  a  field  of  battle,  the  whole 
terrain  on  which  he  was  placed ;  and  astonished,  above 
all,  by  the  sureness  of  the  instinct  with  which  he  divined 
the  significance  of  small  things.  Small  things,"  con- 
tinues M.  Littrd,  "are  those  which  the  vulgar  do  not 
perceive  ;  but,  when  such  things  have  produced  serious 
effects,  pause,  quite  disconcerted,  before  the  irrevocable 
event  which  might  so  easily  have  been  prevented." 

His  conversation,  especially  on  political  subjects,  M. 
Nisard,  comparing  him  with  the  best  conversers  in  a 
country  where  the  art  of  conversation  is  far  more  cul- 
tivated than  it  is  here,  declares  to  be  the  most  perfect  he 
ever  heard  ;  and  we  can  add  our  testimony  to  his,  that 
Carrel's  writings  in  the  "National"  seemed  but  the  con- 
tinuation of  his  conversation.  He  was  fond  of  showing 
that  he  could  do  equal  justice  to  all  sides  of  a  question ; 
and  he  would  "  take  up  a  government  newspaper,  or 
one  of  a  more  moderate  opposition  than  his  own,  and, 
reading   the   article    of  the   day,  he  would   adopt  its 


AEIIAND   CARREL.  307 

idea,  and  complete  it  or  develop  it  in  the  spirit  of  the 
opinions  which  had  inspired  it.  At  other  times,  he 
would,  in  the  same  way,  recompose  the  speeches  in  the 
Chamber.  *  They  have  not  given,'  he  would  say,  '  the 
best  reasons  for  their  opinions ;  this  would  have  been 
more  specious,  and  would  have  embarrassed  us  more.' 
His  facility  was  prodigious.  And  the  reasons  he  gave 
were  not  rhetorical  fallacies,  but  just  arguments  ;  they 
embodied  all  that  could  be  said  truly  and  honorably  on 
that  side  of  the  question.  By  this  he  demonstrated  two 
of  his  qualities,  vastly  superior  to  mere  facility  in  argu- 
ing for  the  sake  of  argument :  on  the  one  hand,  his 
knowledge  of  the  interests  of  all  parties  ;  on  the  other, 
his  real  esteem  for  what  was  just  in  the  views  most 
opposite  to  his  own." 

We  have  marked  these  traits  of  character,  because 
they  help  to  complete  the  picture  of  what  Carrel  was ; 
and  while  they  give  reality  to  our  conception  of  him, 
and  bring  him  home  to  the  feelings  as  a  being  of  our 
own  flesh  and  blood,  they  all  give  additional  insight  into 
those  great  qualities  which  it  is  the  object  of  this  paper 
to  commemorate.  The  mind  needs  such  examples,  to 
keep  alive  in  it  that  faith  in  good,  without  which  noth- 
ing worthy  the  name  of  good  can  ever  be  realized  :  it 
needs  to  be  reminded  by  them,  that  (as  is  often  repeated 
by  one  of  the  greatest  writers  of  our  time)  man  is  still 
man.  Whatever  man  has  been,  man  may  be ;  what- 
ever of  heroic  the  heroic  ages,  whatever  of  chivalrous 
the  romantic  ages,  have  produced,  is  still  possible,  nay, 
still  is  ;  and  a  hero  of  Plutarch  may  exist  amidst  all  the" 
pettinesses  of  modern  civilization,  and  with  all  the  cul- 
tivation and  refinement,  and  the  analyzing  and  question- 


308  ARMAND    CARREL. 

ing  spirit,  of  the  modern  European  mind.  The  lives  of 
those  are  not  lost  who  have  lived  enough  to  be  an 
example  to  the  world ;  and  though  his  country  will  not 
reap  the  blessings  his  life  might  have  conferred  upon  it, 
yet,  while  the  six  years  following  the  Revolution  of  1830 
shall  have  a  place  in  history,  the  memory  of  Armand 
Carrel  will  not  utterly  perish. 

"  Si  quis  piorum  mauibus  locus ;  si,  ut  sapientibus  placet, 
non  cum  corpoi-e  extinguuntur  magnte  animae  ;  placide  quies- 
cas,  nosque  ab  infirmo  desidcrio  et  muliebribus  lamentis  ad 
contemplationem  virtutum  tuarum  voces,  quas  neque  lugeri, 
neque  plangi  fas  est :  admiratione  te  potius,  et  immortalibus 
laudibus,  et  si  natura  suppeditet,  similitudine  decorabimus." 


309 


A    PROPHECY. 

(from  a  beview  of  "letters  from:  palmyra."*) 

The  time  was,  when  it  was  thought  that  the  best  and 
most  appropriate  office  of  fictitious  narrative  was  to 
awaken  high  aspirations,  by  the  representation,  in  inter- 
esting circumstances,  of  characters  conformable  indeed 
to  human  nature,  but  Avhose  actions  and  sentiments  were 
of  a  more  generous  and  loftier  cast  than  are  ordinarily 
to  be  met  with  by  everybody  in  e very-day  life.  But, 
now-a-days,  nature  and  probability  are  thought  to  be  vio- 
lated, if  there  be  shown  to  the  reader,  in  the  personages 
with  whom  he  is  called  upon  to  sympathize,  characters 
on  a  larger  scale  than  himself,  or  than  the  persons  he  is 
accustomed  to  meet  at  a  dinner  or  a  quadrille  party. 
Yet  from  such  representations,  familiar  from  early 
youth,  have  not  only  the  noblest  minds  in  modern 
Europe  derived  much  of  what  made  them  noble,  but 
even  the  commoner  spirits  what  made  them  understand 
and  respond  to  nobleness.  And  this  is  education.  It 
would  be  well  if  the  more  narrow-minded  portion,  both 
of  the  religious  and  of  the  scientific  education-mongers, 
would  consider  whether  the  books  which  they  are  ban- 
ishing from  the  hands  of  youth  were  not  instruments 
of  national  education  to  the  full  as  powerfid  as  the  cata- 
*  London  and  Westminster  Review,  January,  1838. 


310  A   PROPHECY. 

logues  of  physical  facts  and  theological  dogmas  which 
they  have  substituted,  —  as  if  science  and  religion  were 
to  be  taught,  not  by  imbuing  the  mind  with  their  spirit, 
but  by  cramming  the  memory  with  summaries  of  their 
conclusions.  Not  what  a  boy  or  a  girl  can  repeat  by 
rote,  but  what  they  have  learnt  to  love  and  admire,  is 
what  forms  their  character.  The  chivalrous  spirit  has 
almost  disappeared  from  books  of  education  ;  the  popu- 
lar novels  of  the  day  teach  nothing  but  (what  Is  already 
too  soon  learnt  from  actual  life)  lessons  of  worldliness, 
with  at  most  the  huckstering  virtues  which  conduce  to 
getting  on  in  the  world  ;  and,  for  the  first  time  perhaps 
in  history,  the  youth  of  both  sexes  of  the  educated  classes 
are  universally  growing  up  unromantic.  What  will 
come  In  mature  age  from  such  a  youth,  the  world  has 
not  yet  had  time  to  see.  But  the  world  may  rely  upon  it, 
that  catechisms,  whether  PInnock's  or  the  Church  of 
England's,  will  be  found  a  poor  substitute  for  those  old 
romances,  whether  of  chivalry  or  of  fairy,  which,  if 
they  did  not  give  a  true  picture  of  actual  life,  did  not 
give  a  false  one,  since  they  did  not  profess  to  give  any, 
but  (what  was  much  better)  filled  the  youthful  imagi- 
nation with  pictures  of  heroic  men,  and  of  what  are  at 
least  as  much  wanted,  heroic  women.  The  book  before 
us  does  this  :  and  greatly  is  any  book  to  be  valued,  which 
in  this  age,  and  in  a  form  suited  to  it,  does  Its  part 
towards  keeping  alive  the  chivalrous  spirit,  which  was  the 
best  part  of  the  old  romances ;  towards  giving  to  the 
aspirations  of  the  young  and  susceptible  a  noble  direc- 
tion, and  keeping  present  to  the  mind  an  exalted  stand- 
ard of  worth,  by  placing  before  it  heroes  and  heroines 
worthy  of  the  name. 


A    PROPHECY.  311 

It  is  an  additional  title  to  praise  in  this  author,  that 
his  great  women  are  imagined  in  the  very  contrary 
spirit  to  the  modern  cant,  according  to  wliich  an  heroic 
woman  is  supposed  to  be  something  intrinsically  differ- 
ent from  the  best  sort  of  heroic  men.  It  was  not  so 
thought  in  the  days  of  Artemisia  or  Zenobia,  or  in  that 
era  of  great  statesmen  and  stateswomen,  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries,  when  the  daughters  of  royal 
houses  were  governors  of  provinces,  and  displayed,  as 
such,  talents  for  command  equal  to  any  of  their  hus- 
bands or  brothers ;  and  when  negotiations  which  had 
baffled  the  first  diplomatists  of  Francis  and  of  Charles 
V.  were  brought  to  a  successful  issue  by  the  wisdom  and 
dexterity  of  two  princesses.  The  book  before  us  is,  in 
every  line,  a  virtual  protest  against  the  narrow  and 
degrading  doctrine  which  has  grown  out  of  the  false 
refinement  of  later  times.  And  it  is  the  author's 
avowed  belief,  that  one  of  the  innumerable  great  pur- 
poses of  Christianity  was  to  abolish  the  distinction 
between  the  two  characters,  by  teaching  that  neither 
of  them  can  be  really  admirable  without  the  qualities 
supposed  to  be  distinctive  of  the  other,  and  by  exhibit- 
ing, in  the  person  of  its  divine  Founder,  an  equally 
perfect  model  of  both. 


312 


WRITINGS   OF  ALFRED   DE  VIGNY.* 


In  the  French  mind  (the  most  active  national  mind 
in  Europe  at  the  present  moment),  one  of  the  most 
stirring  elements,  and  among  the  fullest  of  promise  for 
the  futurity  of  France  and  of  the  world,  is  the  Royalist, 
or  Carlist,  ingredient.  We  are  not  now  alluding  to  the 
attempts  of  M.  de  Genoude,  and  that  portion  of  the 
Caflist  party  of  which  the  "  Gazette  de  France  "  is 
the  organ,  to  effect  an  alliance  between  legitimacy 
and  universal  suffrage  ;  nor  to  the  eloquent  anathemas 
hurled  against  the  existing  institutions  of  society  by 
a  man  of  a  far  superior  order,  —  the  Abb^  de  la 
Mennais,  whose  original  fervor  of  Roman-Catholic  ab- 
solutism has  given  place  to  a  no  less  fervor  of  Roman- 
Catholic  ultra-Radicalism.  These  things,  too,  have 
their  importance  as  symptoms,  and  even  intrinsically 
are  not  altogether  without  their  value.  But  we  would 
speak  rather  of  the  somewhat  less  obvious  inward 
working  which  (ever  since  the  Revolution  of  1830 
annihilated  the  Carlist  party  as  a  power  in  the  State) 
has  been  going  on  in  the  minds  of  that  accomplished 

*  Consisting  of,  —  1.  Souvenirs  de  Servitude  et  de  Grandeur  Militaire. 
2.  Cinq-Mars;  ou,  une  Conjuration  sous  Louis  XIII.  3.  Stello;  ou,  les 
Consultations  du  Docteur  Noir.  4.  Poemes.  5.  LeMore  de  Venise,  tragedie 
traduite  de  Shakespeare  en  Vers  Franijais.  6.  La  Marechale  d'Ancre,  drame. 
7.  Chatterton,  drame. 

London  and  Westminster  Review,  April,  1838. 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY.  313 

and  numerous  portion  of  the  educated  youth  of  France, 
whose  family  connections  or  early  mental  impressions 
ranked  them  with  the  defeated  party ;  who  had  been 
brought  up,  as  far  as  the  age  permitted,  in  the  old  ideas 
of  monarchical  and  Catholic  France ;  were  allied  by 
their  feelings  or  imaginations  with  whatever  of  great 
and  heroic  those  old  ideas  had  produced  in  the  past ; 
had  not  been  sullied  by  participation  in  the  selfish 
struggles  for  court  favor  and  power,  of  which  the  same 
ideas  were  the  pretext  in  the  present ;  and  to  whom 
the  Three  Days  were  really  the  destruction  of  something 
which  they  had  loved  and  revered,  if  not  for  itself,  at 
least  for  the  reminiscences  associated  with  it. 

These  reflections  present  themselves  naturally  when 
we  are  about  to  speak  of  the  writings  of  Alfred  de 
Vigny,  one  of  the  earliest  in  date,  and  one  of  the  most 
genuine,  true-hearted,  and  irreproachable  in  tendency 
and  spirit,  of  the  new  school  of  French  literature, 
termed  the  romantic.  It  would,  in  fact,  be  impossible 
to  understand  M.  de  Yigny's  writings,  especially  the 
later  and  better  portion,  or  to  enter  sympathizingly  into 
the  peculiar  feelings  which  pervade  them,  without  this 
clew.  M.  de  Vigny  is,  in  poetry  and  art,  as  a  still 
more  eminent  man,  M.  de  Tocqueville,  is  in  philosophy, 
a  result  of  the  influences  of  the  age  upon  a  mind  and 
character  trained  up  in  opinions  and  feelings  opposed 
to  those  of  the  age.  Both  these  writers,  educated  in 
one  set  of  views  of  life  and  society,  found,  when  they 
attained  manhood,  another  set  predominant  in  the  world 
they  lived  in ;  and  at  length,  after  1830,  enthroned  in 
its  high  places.  The  contradictions  they  had  thus  to 
reconcile,  the  doubts  and  perplexities  and  misgivings 


314  ALFRED    DE    YIGNY. 

which  they  had  to  find  the  means  of  overcoming  before 
they  could  see  clearly  between  these  cyoss-lights,  were 
to  them  that,  for  want  of  which  so  many  otherwise 
well-educated  and  naturally-gifted  persons  grow  up 
hopelessly  commonplace.  To  go  through  life  with  a 
set  of  opinions  ready-made  and  provided  for  saving 
them  the  trouble  of  thought  was  a  destiny  that  could 
not  be  theirs.  Unable  to  satisfy  themselves  with  either 
of  the  conflicting  formulas  which  were  given  them  for 
the  interpretation  of  what  lay  in  the  world  before  them, 
they  learnt  to  take  formulas  for  what  they  were  worth, 
and  to  look  into  the  world  itself  for  the  philosophy  of  it. 
They  looked  with  both  their  eyes,  and  saw  much  there 
which  was  neither  in  the  creed  they  had  been  taught, 
nor  in  that  which  they  found  prevailing  around  them  ; 
much  that  the  prejudices,  either  of  Liberalism  or  of 
Royalism,  amounted  to  a  disqualification  for  the  percep- 
tion of,  and  which  would  have  been  hid  from  themselves 
if  the  atmosphere  of  either  had  surrounded  them  both 
in  their  youth  and  in  their  maturer  years. 

That  this  conflict  between  a  Royalist  education,  and 
the  spirit  of  the  modern  world,  triumphant  in  July, 
1830,  must  have  gone  for  something  in  giving  to  the 
speculations  of  a  philosopher  like  M.  de  Tocqueville 
the  catholic  spirit  and  comprehensive  range  which  dis- 
tinguish them,  most  people  will  readily  admit.  But 
that  the  same  causes  must  have  exerted  an  analogous 
influence  over  a  poet  and  artist,  such  as  Alfred  de  Vigny 
is  in  his  degree ;  that  a  political  revolution  can  have 
given  to  the  genius  of  a  poet  what  principally  distin- 
guishes it,  —  may  not  appear  so  obvious,  at  least  to  those 
who,  like  most  EngHshmen,  rarely  enter  into   either 


ALTRED    DE    VIGNT.  315 

politics  or  poetry  with  their  whole  soul.  Worldly 
advancement,  or  religion,  are  an  Englishman's  real 
interests ;  for  politics,  except  in  connection  with  one 
of  those  two  objects,  and  for  art,  he  keeps  only  by- 
corners  of  his  mind,  which  naturally  are  far  apart  from 
each  other :  and  it  is  but  a  small  minority  among  Eng- 
lishmen who  can  comprehend  that  there  are  nations 
among  whom  politics,  or  the  pursuit  of  social  well-being 
and  poetry,  or  the  love  of  beauty  and  of  imaginative 
emotion,  are  passions  as  intense,  as  absorbing,  influ- 
encing as  much  the  whole  tendencies  of  the  character, 
and  constituting  as  large  a  part  of  the  objects  in  life  of 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  cultivated  classes,  as  either 
the  religious  feelings,  or  those  of  worldly  interest. 
Where  both  politics  and  poetry,  instead  of  being  either 
a  trade  or  a  pastime,  are  taken  completely  au  serieux^ 
each  will  be  more  or  less  colored  by  the  other  ;  and  that 
close  relation  between  an  author's  politics  and  his  poetry, 
which  with  us  is  only  seen  in  the  great  poetic  figures 
of  their  age,  —  a  Shelley,  a  Byron,  or  a  Wordsworth,  — 
is  broadly  conspicuous  in  France  (for  example)  through 
the  whole  range  of  her  literature. 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  employ  a  moment  in  con- 
sidering what  are  the  general  features,  which,  in  an  age 
of  revolutions,  may  be  expected  to  distinguish  a  Royalist 
or  Conservative  from  a  Liberal  or  Radical  poet,  or  imagi- 
native writer.  We  are  not  speaking  of  political  poetry, 
of  Tyrtaeus  or  Kcimer,  of  Corn-Law  Rhymes,  or  sonnets 
on  the  Vaudois  or  on  Zaragoza  :  these  are  rather  ora- 
tory than  poetry.  We  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
Radical  poet  as  the  scourge  of  the  oppressor,  or  with 
the  Tory  one  as  the  denouncer  of  infidelity  or  jacobin- 


316  AliFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

ism.  They  are  not  poets  by  virtue  of  what  is  negative 
or  combative  in  their  feelings,  but  by  what  is  positive 
and  sympathizing.  The  pervading  spirit,  then,  of  the 
one,  will  be  love  of  the  past ;  of  the  other,  faith  in 
the  future.  The  partialities  of  the  one  will  be  towards 
things  established,  settled,  regulated ;  of  the  other, 
towards  human  free-will,  cramped  and  fettered  in  all 
directions,  both  for  good  and  ill,  by  those  establish- 
ments and  regulations.  Both,  being  poets,  will  have 
a  heroic  sympathy  with  heroism  :  but  the  one  will  re- 
spond most  readily  to  the  heroism  of  endurance  and 
self-control;  the  other,  to  that  of  action  and  struggle. 
Of  the  virtues  and  beauties  of  our  common  humanity, 
the  one  will  view  with  most  affection  those  which  have 
their  natural  growth  under  the  shelter  of  fixed  habits 
and  firmly  settled  opinions ;  local  and  family  attach- 
ments ;  tranquil  tastes  and  pleasures  ;  those  gentle  and 
placid  feelings  towards  man  and  nature,  ever  most  easy 
to  those  upon  whom  is  not  imposed  the  burthen  of 
being  their  own  protectors  and  their  own  guides. 
Greater  reverence,  deeper  humility,  the  virtues  of  abne- 
gation and  forbearance  carried  to  a  higher  degree,  will 
distinguish  his  favorite  personages  ;  while,  as  subjection 
to  a  common  faith  and  law  brings  the  most  diverse 
characters  to  the  same  standard,  and  tends  more  or  less 
to  efface  their  differences,  a  certain  monotony  of  good- 
ness will  be  apparent,  and  a  degree  of  distaste  for  pro- 
noncS  characters,  as  being  nearly  allied  to  ill-regulated 
ones.  The  sympathies  of  the  Radical  or  Movement 
poet  will  take  the  opposite  direction.  Active  qualities 
are  what  he  will  demand,  rather  than  passive ;  those 
which  fit  persons  for  making  changes  in  the  circum- 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY.  317 

stances  which  surround  them,  rather  than  for  accommo- 
dating themselves  to  those  circumstances.  Sensible  he 
must,  of  course,  be  of  the  necessity  of  restraints  :  but, 
since  he  is  dissatisfied  with  those  which  exist,  his  dis- 
like of  established  opinions  and  institutions  turns  natu- 
rally into  sympathy  with  all  things,  not  in  themselves 
bad,  which  those  opinions  and  institutions  restrain  ;  that 
is,  with  all  natural  human  feelings.  Free  and  vigorous 
developments  of  human  nature,  even  when  he  cannot 
refuse  them  his  disapprobation,  will  command  his  sym- 
pathy ;  a  more  marked  individuality  will  usually  be 
conspicuous  in  his  creations  ;  his  heroic  characters  will 
be  all  armed  for  conflict,  full  of  energy  and  strong  self- 
will,  of  grand  conceptions  and  brilliant  virtues,  but,  in 
habits  of  virtue,  often  below  those  of  the  Conservative 
school ;  there  will  not  be  so  broad  and  black  a  line 
between  his  good  and  bad  personages ;  his  characters 
of  principle  will  be  more  tolerant  of  his  characters  of 
mere  passion.  Among  human  affections,  the  Conserva- 
tive poet  will  give  the  preference  to  those  which  can  be 
invested  with  the  character  of  duties  ;  to  those  of  which 
the  objects  are,  as  it  were,  marked  out  by  the  arrange- 
ments either  of  nature  or  of  society,  we  ourselves  ex- 
ercising no  choice,  —  as  the  parental,  the  filial,  the 
conjugal  after  the  irrevocable  union,  or  a  solemn  be- 
trothment  equivalent  to  it,  and  with  due  observance  of 
all  decencies,  both  real  and  conventional.  The  other 
will  delight  in  painting  the  affections  which  choose  their 
own  objects,  especially  the  most  powerful  of  these,  — 
passionate  love  ;  and,  of  that,  the  more  vehement  oftener 
than  the  more  graceful  aspects ;  will  select  by  prefer- 
ence its  subtlest  workings,  and  its  most  unusual  and 


318  ALFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

unconventional  forms ;    will   show  it  at  war  with   the 
forms  and  customs  of  society ;  nay,  even  with  its  laws 
and  its  religion,  if  the  laws  and  tenets  which  regulate 
that  branch  of  human  relations  are  among  those  which 
have  begun  to  be  murmured  against.     By  the  Conserva- 
tive, feelings  and  states  of  mind  which  he  disapproves 
will  be  indicated  rather  than  painted :   to  Lay  open  the 
morbid  anatomy  of  human  nature  will  appear  to  him 
contrary  to  good  taste  always,  and  often  to  morality ; 
and,  inasmuch  as  feelings  intense  enough  to   threaten 
established  decorums  with  any  danger  of  violation  will 
most  frequently  have  the  character  of  morbidness  in  his 
eyes,   the  representation   of  passion  in  the   colors    of 
reality  will  commonly  be  left  to  the  Movement  poet. 
To  him,  whatever  exists,  will  appear,  from  that  alone, 
fit  to  be  represented :  to  probe  the  wounds  of  society 
and  humanity  is  part  of  his  business  ;  and  he  will  neither 
shrink  from  exhibiting  what  is  in  nature,  because  it  is 
morally  culpable,  nor  because  it  is  physically  revolting. 
Even  in  their  representations  of  inanimate  nature,  there 
will  be  a  difference.     The  pictures  most  grateful  and 
most  familiar  to  the  one  will  be  those  of  a  universe 
at  peace  within  itself;    of  stability  and  duration;    of 
irresistible  power  serenely  at  rest,  or  moving  in  fulfil- 
ment of  the  established  arrangements  of  the  universe  ; 
whatever  suggests  unity  of  design,  and  the  harmonious 
co-operation  of  all  the  forces  of  nature  towards  ends 
intended  by  a  Being  in  whom  there  is  no  variableness, 
nor  shadow  of  change.     In  the  creations  of  the  other, 
nature  will  oftener  appear  in  the  relations  which  it  bears 
to  the  individual,  rather  than  to  the  scheme  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  there  will  be  a  larger  place  assigned  to  those  of 


AliTRED   DE   VIGNY.  319 

its  aspects  which  reflect  baxik  the  troubles  of  an  un- 
quiet soul,  the  impulses  of  a  passionate,  or  the  enjoy- 
ments of  a  voluptuous  one  :  and,  on  the  whole,  here, 
too,  the  Movement  poet  will  extend  so  much  more 
widely  the  bounds  of  the  permitted,  that  his  sources 
both  of  effect  and  of  permanent  interest  will  have  a  far 
larger  range ;  and  he  will  generally  be  more  admired 
tban  the  other  by  all  those  by  whom  he  is  not  actually 
condemned. 

There  is  room  in  the  world  for  poets  of  both  these 
kinds ;  and  the  greatest  will  always  partake  of  the 
nature  of  both.  A  comprehensive  and  catholic  mind 
and  heart  will  doubtless  feel  and  exhibit  all  these  differ- 
ent sympathies,  each  in  its  due  proportion  and  degree  : 
but  what  that  due  proportion  may  happen  to  be  is  part 
of  the  larger  question  which  every  one  has  to  ask  of 
himself  at  such  periods;  viz.,  whether  it  were  for  the 
good  of  humanity,  at  the  particular  era,  that  Conserva- 
tive or  Radical  feehng  should  most  predominate.  For 
there  is  a  perpetual  antagonism  between  these  two ; 
and,  until  human  affairs  are  much  better  ordered  than 
they  are  likely  to  be  for  some  time  to  come,  each  will 
require  to  be,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  tempered  by 
the  other  :  nor  until  the  ordinances  of  law  and  of  opin- 
ion are  so  framed  as  to  give  full  scope  to  all  individu- 
ality not  positively  noxious,  and  to  restrain  all  that  is 
noxious,  will  the  two  classes  of  sympathies  ever  be 
entirely  reconciled. 

Suppose,  now,  a  poet  of  conservative  sympathies, 
surprised  by  the  shock  of  a  revolution  which  sweeps 
away  the  surviving  symbols  of  what  was  great  in  the 
past,  and  decides  irrevocably  the  triumph  of  new  things 


320  ALFRED   DE   VIGNY. 

over  the  old ;  what  will  be  the  influence  of  this  event 
on  his  imagination  and  feelings  ?  To  us  it  seems  that 
they  will  become  both  sadder  and  wiser.  He  will  lose 
that  blind  faith  in  the  past  which  previously  might 
have  tempted  him  to  fight  for  it  with  a  mistaken  ardor, 
against  what  is  generous  and  worthy  in  the  new  doc- 
trines. The  fall  of  the  objects  of  his  reverence  will 
naturally,  if  he  has  any  discernment,  open  his  mind  to 
the  perception  of  that  in  them  whereby  they  deserved 
to  fall.  But,  while  he  is  thus  disenchanted  of  the  old 
things,  he  will  not  have  acquired  that  faith  in  the  new 
which  animated  the  Radical  poet.  Having  it  not  before, 
there  is  nothing  in  the  triumph  of  those  new  things 
which  can  inspire  him  with  it :  institutions  and  creeds 
fall  by  their  own  badness,  not  by  the  goodness  of  that 
which  strikes  the  actual  blow.  The  destiny  of  man- 
kind, therefore,  will  naturally  appear  to  him  in  rather 
sombre  colors  :  gloomy  he  may  not  be ;  but  he  will 
everywhere  tend  to  the  elegiac,  to  the  contemplative 
and  melancholy,  rather  than  to  the  epic  and  active ;  his 
song  will  be  a  subdued  and  plaintive  symphony,  more  or 
less  melodious  according  to  the  measure  of  his  genius, 
on  the  old  theme  of  blasted  hopes  and  defeated  aspira- 
tions. Yet  there  will  now  be  nothing  partial  or  one- 
sided in  his  sympathies  ;  no  sense  of  a  conflict  to  be 
maintained,  of  a  position  to  be  defended  against  assail- 
ants, will  warp  the  impartiality  of  his  pity,  —  will  make 
him  feel  that  there  are  wrono^s  and  sufferinojs  which 
must  be  dissembled,  inconsistencies  which  must  be 
patched  up,  vanities  which  he  must  attempt  to  consider 
serious,  false  pretences  which  he  must  try  to  njistake 
for  truths,  lest  he  should  be  too  little  satisfied  with  his 


ALFRED   DE   VIGNT.  321 

own  cause  to  do  his  duty  as  a  combatant  for  it :  he  will 
no  longer  feel  obliged  to'  treat  all  that  part  of  human 
nature  which  rebelled  against  the  old  ideas,  as  if  it 
were  accursed,  —  all  those  human  joys  and  sufferings, 
hopes  and  fears,  which  were  the  strength  of  the  new 
doctrines,  and  which  the  old  ones  did  not  take  sufficient 
account  of,  as  if  they  were  unworthy  of  his  sympathy. 
His  heart  will  open  itself  freely  and  largely  to  the  love 
of  all  that  is  lovable,  to  pity  of  all  that  is  pitiable  ;  every 
cry  of  suffering  humanity  will  strike  a  responsive  chord 
in  his  breast ;  whoever  carries  nobly  his  own  share  of 
the  general  burthen  of  human  life,  or  generously  helps 
to  lighten  that  of  others,  is  sure  of  his  homage ;  while 
he  has  a  deep  fraternal  charity  for  the  erring  and  dis- 
appointed, for  those  who  have  aspired  and  fallen,  — 
who  have  fallen  because  they  have  aspired ;  because 
they,  too,  have  felt  those  infinite  longings  for  something 
greater  than  merely  to  live  and  die,  which  he  as  a  poet 
has  felt ;  which,  as  a  poet,  he  cannot  but  have  been 
conscious  that  he  would  have  purchased  the  realization 
of  by  an  even  greater  measure  of  error  and  suffering ; 
and  which,  as  a  poet  disenchanted,  he  knows  too  well 
the  pain  of  renouncing,  not  to  feel  a  deep  indulgence 
for  those  who  are  victims  of  their  inability  to  make  the 
sacrifice. 

In  this  ideal  portraiture  may  be  seen  the  genuine 
lineaments  of  Alfred  de  Vigny.  The  same  features 
may  indeed  be  traced,  more  or  less,  in  the  greater  part 
of  the  Royalist  literature  of  young  France  :  even  in 
Balzac,  all  these  characteristics  are  distinctly  visible, 
blended,  of  course,  with  his  individual  peculiarities,  and 
modified  by  them.     But  M.  de  Vigny  is  a  more  perfect 

VOL.  I.  21 


322  ALFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

type,  because  he,  more  entirely  than  most  others,  writes 
from  his  real  feelings,  and  not  from  mere  play  of  fancy. 
Many  a  writer  in  France,  of  no  creed  at  all,  and  who 
therefore  gives  himself  all  the  latitude  of  a  Movement 
poet,  is  a  Royalist  with  his  imagination  merely,  for  the 
sake  of  the  picturesque  effect  of  donjons  and  cloisters, 
crusaders  and  troubadours.  And,  in  retaliation,  many 
a  Liberal  or  Republican  critic  will  stand  up  stiffly  for  the 
old  school  in  literature,  for  the  grand  siecle,  because, 
like  him,  it  takes  its  models  from  Greece  or  Rome,  and 
will  keep  no  terms  with  the  innovators  who  find  any 
thing  grand  and  poetical  in  the  middle  ages,  or  who 
fancy  that  barons  or  priests  may  look  well  in  rhyme. 
But  this  is  accident ;  an  exception  to  the  ordinary  rela- 
tion between  political  opinions  and  poetic  tendencies. 
A  Radical  who  finds  his  political  heau-ideal  still  farther 
back  in  the  past  than  the  Royalist  finds  his  is  not  the 
type  of  a  Radical  poet ;  he  will  more  resemble  the  Con- 
servative poet  of  ages  back:  less  of  the  Movement 
spirit  may  be  found  id  him  than  in  many  a  nominal 
Royalist,  whose  Royalist  convictions  have  no  very  deep 
root.  But,  when  we  would  see  the  true  character  of  a 
Royalist  poet,  we  must  seek  for  it  in  one  like  M.  de 
Vigny, — a  conservative  in  feeling,  and  not  in  mere 
fancy  ;  and  a  man  (if  we  may  judge  from  his  writings) 
of  rare  simplicity  of  heart,  and  freedom  from  egotism 
and  self-display.      The  most  complete  exemplification 

of  the  feelino;s  and  views  of  thinn-s  which  we  have  de- 
cs o 

scribed  as  naturally  belonging  to  the  Royalist  poet  of 
young  France  will  be  found  in  his  productions  subse- 
quent to  the  Revolution  of  1830.  But  we  must  first 
see  him  as  he  was  before  1830,  and  in  writinofs  in  which 


ALFRED   DE   VIGNY.  323 

the  qualities  we  have  enumerated  had  as  yet  manifested 
themselves  only  in  a  small  degree. 

Count  Alfred  de  Vigny  was  born  -on  the  27th  of 
March,  1799,  at  Loches  in  Touraine, — that  province 
which  has  given  birth  to  so  many  of  the  literary  celeb- 
rities of  France.  His  father  was  an  old  cavalry  officer 
of  ancient  lineage,  who  had  served  in  the  Seven- Years' 
War,  and  whose  stories  of  his  illustrious  friends  Che- 
vert  and  d'Assas,  and  of  the  great  Frederic  (who  was 
not  a  little  indebted,  even  for  his  victories,  to  the  pres- 
tige he  exercised  over  the  enthusiastic  imaginations  of 
the  French  officers  who  fought  against  him) ,  were  the 
earliest  nourishment  of  the  son's  childish  aspirations. 
In  the  latter  years  of  Napoldon,  our  author  was  a  youth 
at  college ;  and  he  has  described,  in  the  first  chapter  of 
his  "Souvenirs  de  Servitude  Militaire,"  the  restless  and 
roving  spirit,  the  ardor  for  military  glory  and  military 
adventure,  the  contempt  of  all  pursuits  and  wishes  not 
terminating  in  a  marshal's  hdton,  which  were  the  epi- 
demic diseases  of  every  French  schoolboy  during  those 
years  when  "the  beat  of  drum,"  to  use  his  own  expres- 
sion, "drowned  the  voice  of  the  teacher,"  and  of  which 
M.  de  Vigny  confesses,  in  all  humility,  that  the  traces 
in  himself  are  not  entirely  effaced.  On  the  foil  of 
Napoleon,  he  entered,  at  sixteen,  into  the  royal  guard ; 
accompanied  the  Bourbons  to  Ghent  during  the  Hundred 
Days ;  and  remained  in  the  army  up  to  1828.  Four- 
teen years  a  soldier  without  seeing  any  service  (for 
he  was  not  even  in  the  brief  Spanish  campaign) ,  the 
alternation  of  routine  duties  and  enforced  idleness, 
the  ennui  of  an  active  profession  without  one  opportu- 
nity for  action,  except  in  obscure  and  painful  civil  broils, 


324  ALFRED    DE    VIGXY. 

would  have  driven  many  to  find  relief  in  dissipation  : 
M.  de  Yigny  found  it  in  contemplation  and  solitary 
thought.  "Those  years  of  my  life,"  he  says,  "would 
have  been  wasted,  if  I  had  not  employed  them  in  atten- 
tive and  persevering  observation,  storing  up  the  results 
for  future  years.  I  owe  to  my  military  life  views  of 
human  nature  which  could  never  have  reached  me  but 
under  a  soldier's  uniform.  There  are  scenes  which  one 
can  only  arrive  at  through  disgusts,  which,  to  one  not 
forced  to  endure  them,  would  be  unendurable.  .  .  . 
Overcome  by  an  ennui  which  I  had  little  expected  in 
that  life  so  ardently  desired,  it  became  a  necessity  for 
me  to  rescue  at  least  my  nights  from  the  empty  and 
tiresome  bustle  of  a  soldier's  days.  In  those  nights,  I 
enlarged  in  silence  what  knowledge  I  had  received  from 
our  tumultuous  public  studies  ;  and  thence  the  origin  of 
my  vvritings." 

M.  de  Vigny's  first  publications  were  poems,  of  which 
we  shall  say  a  few  words  presently,  and  which,  what- 
ever be  the  opinion  formed  of  their  absolute  merit,  are 
considered  by  a  sober  and  impartial  critic,  M.  Sainte- 
Beuve,  as  of  a  more  completely  original  character  than 
those  of  either  Lamartine  or  Victor  Hugo.  It  is,  there- 
fore, only  in  the  common  course  of  things,  that  they 
we're,  at  the  time,  but  moderately  successful.  The  first 
of  his  works  which  attained  popularity  was  "  Cinq-Mars  ; 
or,  A  Conspiracy  under  Louis  XIII.," — -an  historical 
romance  of  the  school  of  Sir  "Walter  Scott,  then  at  the 
height  of  his  popularity  in  France,  and  who  was  breath- 
ins:  the  breath  of  life  into  the  historical  literature  of 
France,  and,  through  France,  of  all  Europe. 

M.  de  Vigny  has  chosen  his  scene  at  that  passage 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY.  ^  325 

of  French  history  which  completed  the  transformation 
of  the  feudal  monarchy  of  the  middle  ages  into  the 
despotic  and  com*tly  monarchy  of  Louis  XIV.  The 
iron  hand  of  Richelieu,  reigning  in  the  name  of  a  mas- 
ter who  both  feared  and  hated  him,  but  whom  habit 
and  conscious  incapacity  rendered  his  slave,  had  broken 
the  remaining  strength  of  those  great  lords,  once  power- 
ful enough  to  cope,  single-handed,  with  their  sovereign, 
and  several  of  whom,  by  confederating,  could,  to  a  very 
late  period,  dictate  for  themselves  terms  of  capitulation. 
The  crafty  and  cruel  policy  of  the  minister  had  mowed 
down  all  of  those,  who,  by  position  and  personal  qual- 
ities, stood  pre-eminent  above  the  rest.  As  for  those, 
whom,  because  they  could  not  be  dangerous  to  him,  he 
spared,  their  restlessness  and  turbulence,  surviving  their 
power,  might,  during  a  royal  minority,  break  out  once 
more  into  impotent  and  passing  tumults  ;  but  the  next 
generation  of  them  were  and  could  be  nothing  but 
courtiers :  an  aristocracy  still  for  purposes  of  rapine 
and  oppression,  for  resistance  to  the  despotism  of  the 
monarch  they  were  as  the  feeblest  of  the  multitude. 
A  most  necessary  and  salutary  transformation  in  Euro- 
pean society,  and  which,  whether  completed  by  the 
hands  of  a  Richelieu  or  a  Henry  the  Seventh,  was,  as 
M.  de  Vigny  clearly  sees  (and  perhaps  no  longer 
laments),  the  destined  and  inevitable  preparation  for 
the  era  of  modern  liberty  and  democracy.  But  the  age 
was  one  of  those  (there  are  several  of  them  in  history) 
in  which  the  greatest  and  most  beneficial  ends  were 
accomplished  by  the  basest  means.  It  was  the  age  of 
struggle  between  unscrupulous  intellect  and  brute  force ; 
intellect  not  yet  in  a  condition  to  assert  its  inherent 


326  ALFRED   DE   VIGNY. 

right  of  supremacy  by  pure  means,  and  no  longer 
wielding,  as  in  the  great  era  of  the  Reformation,  the 
noble  weapon  of  an  honest  popular  enthusiasm.  lago, 
prime-minister,  is  the  type  of  the  men  who  crumbled 
into  dust  the  feudal  aristocracies  of  Europe.  In  no 
period  were  the  unseen  springs  both  of  the  good  and 
the  evil  that  was  done  so  exclusively  the  viler  passions 
of  humanity.  What  little  of  honorable  or  virtuous 
feeling  might  exist  in  high  places  during  that  era  was 
probably  oftenest  found  in  the  aristocratic  faction  so 
justly  and  beneficially  extirpated  :  for,  in  the  rule  of 
lawless  force,  some  noble  impulses  are  possible  in  the 
rulers  at  least ;  in  that  of  cunning  and  fraud,  none. 

Towards  the  close  of  Richelieu's  career,  when  the 
most  difficult  part  of  liis  task  was  done,  but  his  sinking 
health,  and  the  growing  jealousy  and  fear  of  that  mas- 
ter, one  word  of  whom  would  even  then  have  dismissed 
him  into  private  hfe,  made  the  cares  of  his  station  press 
heavier  on  him,  and  required  a  more  constant  and 
anxious  watchfulness  than  ever,  it  was  his  practice  to 
amuse  the  frivolous  monarch  with  a  perpetual  succession 
of  new  favorites,  who  served  his  purpose  till  Louis  was 
tired  of  them,  or  whom,  if  any  of  them  proved  capable 
of  acquiring  a  permanent  tenure  of  the  royal  favor,  and 
of  promoting  other  designs  than  his  own,  he  well  knew 
how  to  remove.  The  last,  the  most  accomplished,  and 
the  most  unfortunate  of  these  was  Henri  d'Effiat,  Mar- 
quis de  Cinq-Mars ;  and  of  him  our  author  has  made 
the  hero  of  his  tale.* 


*  [Here  followed  originally  a  sketch  of  the  plot  of  the  romance,  now 
omitted  as  vmnecessary.] 


ALFRED   DE   VIGNY.  327 

Such  is  "  Cinq-Mars  ;  or,  A  Conspiracy  under  Louis 
XIII.," — a  work  not  free  from  the  fault,  so  far  as  it  is  a 
fault,  most  common  in  the  romantic  literature  of  young 
France  :  it  partakes  somewhat  of  the  "  Literature  of 
Despair ; "  it  too  much  resembles  M.  Eugene  Sue's 
early  novels,  in  which  every  villain  dies  honored  and 
prosperous  at  a  good  old  age,  after  every  innocent 
person  in  the  tale  has  been  crushed  and  exterminated 
by  him  without  pity  or  remorse,  —  through  which  the 
mocking  laugh  of  a  chorus  of  demons  si  ems  to  ring  in 
our  ears  that  the  world  is  delivered  over  tc  an  evil  spirit, 
and  that  man  is  his  creature  and  his  prey.  But  such  is 
not  the  character  of  M.  de  Vigny's  writings,  and  the 
resemblance  in  this  single  instance  is  only  casual.  Still, 
as  a  mere  work  of  art,  —  if  the  end  of  art  be,  as  con- 
ceived by  the  ancients  and  by  the  great  German  writers, 
the  production  of  the  intrinsically  beautiful, —  Cinq-Mars 
cannot  be  commended.  A  story  in  which  the  odious 
and  the  contemptible  in  man  and  life  act  so  predominant 
a  part,  which  excites  our  scorn  or  ou»  hatred  so  much 
more  than  our  pity,  comes  within  a  far  other  category 
than  that  of  the  Beautiful,  and  can  be  justified  on  no 
canons  of  taste  of  which  that  is  the  end.  But  it  is  not 
possible  for  the  present  generation  of  France  to  restrict 
the  purposes  of  art  within  this  limit.  They  are  too 
much  in  earnest.  They  take  life  too  much  au  scrieux. 
It  may  be  possible  (what  some  of  his  more  enthusiastic 
admirers  say  of  Goethe)  that  a  thoroughly  earnest 
mind  may  struggle  upwards  through  the  region  of 
clouds  and  storms  to  an  untroubled  summit,  where  all 
other  good  sympathies  and  aspirations  confound  them- 
selves in  a  serene  love  and  culture  of  the  calmly  beauti- 


328  ALFRED    DE    VIGNT. 

ful,  —  looking  down  upon  the  woes  and  struggles  of 
perplexed  humanity  with  as  calm  a  gaze  (though  with  a 
more  helping  arm)  as  that  of  him  who  is  most  placidly 
indifferent  to  human  weal.  But,  however  this  may  be, 
the  great  majority  of  persons  in  earnest  will  remain 
always  in  the  intermediate  region  ;  will  feel  themselves 
more  or  less  militant  in  this  world,  — havin"^  somethinfj 
to  pursue  in  it  different  from  the  Beautiful,  different 
from  their  own  mental  tranquillity  and  health,  and  which 
they  wUl  pursue,  if  they  have  the  gifts  of  an  artist,  by 
all  the  resources  of  art,  whatever  becomes  of  canons  of 
criticism  and  beauty  in  the  abstract.  The  writers  and 
readers  of  works  of  imagination  in  France  have  the 
desire  of  amusement  as  much  as  English  readers,  — 
the  sense  of  beauty,  generally  much  more ;  but  they 
have  also,  very  generally,  a  thirst  for  something  which 
shall  address  itself  to  their  real  life  feelings,  and  not  to 
those  of  imagination  merely, — which  shall  give  them 
an  idea  or  a  sentiment  connected  with  the  actual  world. 
And  if  a  story  oe  a  poem  is  possessed  by  an  idea ;  if  it 
powerfully  exhibits  some  form  of  real  life,  or  some  con- 
ception respecting  human  nature  or  society  which  may 
tend  to  consequences, — not  only  is  it  not  necessarily 
expected  to  represent  abstract  beauty,  but  it  is  pardoned 
for  exhibiting  even  hideousness.  These  considerations 
should  enable  us  to  understand  and  tolerate  such  works 
as  "  Le  Pere  Goriot "  of  Balzac,  or  "  Leoni  "  of  George 
Sand ;  and  to  understand,  if  we  do  not  tolerate,  such 
as  the  "  Antony  "  or  "  Richard  Darlington  "  of  Alex- 
andre Dumas. 

Now,  among  the  ideas  with  which  French  literature 
has  been  possessed  for  the  last  ten  years  is  that  of  real- 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY.  329 

izing,  and  bringing  home  to  the  imagination,  the  history 
and  spu-it  of  past  ages.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  having  no 
object  but  to  please,  and  having  readers  who  only  sought 
to  be  pleased,  vrould  not  have  told  the  story  of  Riche- 
lieu and  Cinq-Mars  without  greatly  softening  the  color- 
ing ;  and  the  picture  would  have  been  more  agreeable 
than  M.  de  Vigny's,  but  it  would  not  have  been  so  true 
to  the  age.  M.  de  Vigny  preferred  the  truer  to  the 
more  pleasing ;  and  his  readers  have  sanctioned  the 
preference. 

Even  according  to  this  view  of  its  object,  the  work 
has  obvious  defects.  The  characters  of  some  of  the 
subordinate  personages  —  Friar  Joseph,  for  instance  — 
are  even  more  revolting  than  the  truth  of  history 
requires.  De  Thou,  the  pious  and  studious  man  of 
retirement,  cast  out  into  storms  for  which  he  was  never 
meant, — the  only  character  of  principle  in  the  tale, 
yet  who  sacrifices  principle  as  well  as  life  to  romantic 
friendship,  — is  but  coldly  represented  :  his  goodness  is 
too  simple,  his  attachment  too  instinctive,  too  dog-like ; 
and  so  much  intensity  of  friendship  is  not  sufficiently 
accounted  for.  Balzac  would  have  managed  these 
things  better.  The  author  also  crowds  his  story  too 
much  with  characters  :  he  cannot  bear  that  any  cele- 
brated personage  whom  the  age  aflfords  shoidd  be  passed 
over ;  and,  consequently,  introduces  many  who  ought 
not  to  have  been  drawn  at  all  unless  they  could  be 
drawn  truly,  and  on  whom  he  has  not  been  able  to 
employ  the  same  accurate  study  as  he  has  on  his  prin- 
cipal characters.  Richelieu  and  Louis  XIII.  are  his- 
torical fiomres  of  which  he  has  taken  the  trouble  to  form 
a  well-digested  conception ;   but  he  can  know  nothing 


330  ALFRED   DE   VIGXY. 

of  Milton,  whom  he  introduces,  on  his  way  from  Italy, 
reading  his  "Paradise  Lost,"  not  written  till  twenty 
years  after,  to  Corneille,  Descartes,  and  a  crowd  of 
other  poets,  wits,  and  philosophers,  in  the  salon  of  the 
celebrated  courtesan,  Marion  Delorrae.  But  these  are 
minor  blemishes.  As  a  specimen  of  art,  employed 
in  embodying  the  character  of  an  age,  the  merit  of 
**  Cinq-Mars "  is  very  great.  The  spirit  of  the  age 
penetrates  every  nook  and  corner  of  it :  the  same  atmos- 
phere which  hangs  over  the  personages  of  the  story 
hangs  over  us  :  we  feel  the  eye  of  the  omnipresent 
Richelieu  upon  us,  and  the  influences  of  France,  in  its 
Catholic  and  aristocratic  days,  of  ardent,  pleasure-loving, 
laughter-loving,  and  danger-loving  France,  all  round 
us.  To  this  merit  is  to  be  added  that  the  representa- 
tions of  feeling  are  always  simple  and  graceful :  the 
author  has  not,  like  so  many  inferior  writers,  supplied, 
by  the  easy  resource  of  mere  exaggeration  of  coloring, 
the  incapacity  to  show  us  any  thing  subtle  or  profound, 
any  trait  we  knew  not  before,  in  the  workings  of  pas- 
sion in  the  human  heart.  On  the  whole,  "  Cinq-Mars  " 
is  admirable  as  a  first  production  of  its  kind,  but 
altogether  of  an  inferior  order  to  its  successors,  the 
"Grandeur  et  Servitude  Militaire "  and  "  Stello,"  to 
which  we  proceed. 

Of  M.  de  Vigny's  prose  works,  "Cinq-Mars"  alone 
was  written  previous  to  the  Revolution  of  1830 ;  and, 
though  the  Royalist  tendency  of  the  author's  political 
opinions  is  manifest  throughout, — indeed,  the  book  is 
one  long  protest  against  the  levelling  of  the  feudal 
aristocracy, — it  does  not,  nor  does   any  part  of  the 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY.  331 

Royalist  literature  of  the  last  twenty  years,  entirely 
answer  to  our  description  of  the  Conservative  school 
of  poetry  and  romance.  To  find  a  real  Conservative 
literature  in  France,  one  must  look  earlier  than  the  first 
Revolution ;  as,  to  study  the  final  transformation  of 
that  literature,  one  must  descend  below  the  last.  One 
must  distinguish  three  periods,  —  Conservatism  trium- 
phant. Conservatism  militant.  Conservatism  vanquished. 
The  first  is  represented  by  Racine,  Fendlon,  and  Vol- 
taire in  his  tragedies,  before  he  quitted  the  paths  of 
his  predecessors.  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  is  the  father 
and  founder  of  the  Movement  Hterature  of  France, 
and  Madame  de  Stael  its  second  great  apostle  :  in  them 
first  the  revolt  of  the  modern  mind  against  the  social 
arrangements  and  doctrines  which  had  descended  from 
of  old  spoke  with  the  inspired  voice  of  genius.  At 
the  head  of  the  literature  of  Conservatism,  in  its  second 
or  militant  period,  stands  Chateaubriand :  a  man  whose 
name  marks  one  of  the  turning-points  in  the  literary 
history  of  his  country ;  poetically  a  Conservative  to  the 
inmost  core,  —  root edly  feudal  and  Catholic,  —  whose 
genius  burst  into  life  during  the  tempest  of  a  revolu- 
tion which  hurled  down  from  their  pedestals  all  his 
objects  of  reverence ;  which  saddened  his  imagination, 
modified  (without  impairing)  his  Conservatism  by 
the  addition  of  its  multiform  experiences,  and  made  the 
world  to  him  too  full  of  disorder  and  gloom,  too  much 
a  world  without  Jiarmony,  and  ill  at  ease,  to  allow  of 
his  exhibiting  the  pure  untroubled  spirit  of  Conservative 
poetry  as  exemplified  in  Southey,  or  still  more  in 
Wordsworth.  To  this  literature,  of  Conservatism  dis- 
couraged but  not  yet  disenchanted,  still  hopeful,  and 


332  ALFRED    DE    VIGXY. 

striving  to  set  up  again  its  old  idols,  "  Cinq-Mars  "  be- 
longs. From  the  final  and  hopeless  overthrow  of  the 
old  order  of  society  in  July,  1830,  begins  the  era  of 
Conservatism  disenchanted,  —  Conservatism  which  is 
already  in  the  past  tense,  —  which  for  practical  pur- 
poses is  abandoned,  and  only  contributes  its  share,  as 
all  past  associations  and  experiences  do,  towards  shap- 
ing and  coloring  the  individual's  impressions  of  the 
present. 

This  is  the  character  which  pervades  the  two  prin- 
cipal of  M.  de  Vigny's  more  recent  works,  —  the  "  Ser- 
vitude et  Grandeur  Militaire "  and  "  Stello."  He  has 
lost  his  faith  in  Royalism,  and  in  the  system  of  opinions 
connected  with  it.  His  eyes  are  opened  to  all  the 
iniquities  and  hypocrisies  of  the  state  of  society  which 
is  passing  away.  But  he  cannot  take  up  with  any 
of  the  systems  of  politics,  and  of  either  irreligious  or 
religious  philosophy,  which  profess  to  lay  open  the 
mystery  of  what  is  to  follow,  and  to  guarantee  that 
the  new  order  of  society  wull  not  have  its  own  iniquities 
and  hypocrisies  of  as  dark  a  kind.  He  has  no  faith  in 
any  systems,  or  in  man's  power  of  prophecy :  nor  is 
he  sure  that  the  new  tendencies  of  society,  take  them 
for  all  in  all,  have  more  to  satisfy  the  wants  of  a 
thoughtful  and  loving  spirit  than  the  old  had ;  at  all 
events,  not  so  much  more  as  to  make  the  condition  of 
human  nature  a  cheerful  subject  to  him.  He  looks 
upon  life,  and  sees  most  things  crooked,  and  (saving 
whatever  assurance  his  religious  impressions  may  afford 
to  him,  that,  in  some  unknown  way,  all  things  must  be 
working  for  good)  sees  not  how  they  shall  be  made 
straight.     This  is  not  a  happy  state  of  mind  ;  but  it  is 


ALFRED    DE    VIGXY.  333 

not  an  unfavorable  one  to  poetry.  If  the  worse  forms 
of  it  produce  a  "  Literature  of  Despair,"  the  better  are 
seen  in  a  writer  like  M.  de  Vigny,  who,  having  now 
no  theories  of  his  own  or  of  his  teachers  to  save  the 
credit  of,  looks  life  steadily  in  the  face ;  applies  him- 
self to  understanding  whatever  of  evil,  and  of  heroic 
struggle  with  evil,  it  presents  to  his  individual  expe- 
rience ;  and  gives  forth  his  pictures  of  both,  with  deep 
feeling,  but  with  the  calmness  of  one  who  has  no  point 
to  carry,  no  quarrel  to  maintain,  over  and  above  the 
• "  general  one  of  every  son  of  Adam  with  his  lot  here 
below." 

M.  de  Vigny  has  been  a  soldier ;  and  he  has  been, 
and  is,  a  poet :  the  situation  and  feelings  of  a  soldier 
(especially  a  soldier  not  in  active  service) ,  and,  so  far 
as  the  measure  of  his  genius  admits,  those  of  a  poet, 
are  what  he  is  best  acquainted  with,  and  what,  there- 
fore, as  a  man  of  earnest  mind,  not  now  taking  any  thing 
on  trust,  it  was  mqgt  natural  he  should  attempt  to 
delineate.  The  "  Souvenirs  Militaires  "  are  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  author's  experiences  in  the  one  capacity ; 
"  Stello,"  in  the  other.  Each  consists  of  three  touch- 
ing and  beautifully  told  stories,  founded  on  fact,  in 
which  the  life  and  position  of  a  soldier  in  modem  times, 
and  of  a  poet  at  all  times,  in  their  relation  to  society, 
are  shadowed  out.  In  relation  to  society  chiefly  ;  for 
that  is  the  prominent  feature  in  all  the  speculations  of 
the  French  mind :  and  thence  it  is  that  their  poetry  is 
so  much  shallower  than  ours,  and  their  works  of  fiction 
so  much  deeper ;  that,  of  the  metaphysics  of  every 
mode  of  feeling  and  thinking,  so  little  is  to  be  learnt 
from  them,  and  of  its  social  influences  so  much. 


334  ALFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

The  soldier  and  the  poet  appear  to  M.  de  Vigny 
alike  misplaced,  alike  ill  at  ease,  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  human  life.  In  the  soldier  he  sees  a  human 
being  set  apart  for  a  profession  doomed  to  extinction  ; 
and  doomed  consequently,  in  the  interval,  to  a  con- 
tinual decrease  of  dignity  and  of  the  sympathies  of 
mankind.  War  he  sees  drawing  to  a  close ;  compro- 
mises and  diplomatic  arrangements  now  terminate  the 
differences  among  civilized  nations ;  the  army  is  re- 
duced more  and  more  to  mere  parade,  or  the  functions 
of  a  police ;  called  out  from  time  to  time  to  shed  its 
own  blood  and  that  of  malecontent  fellow-citizens  in 
tumults  where  much  popular  hatred  is  to  be  earned, 
but  no  glory ;  disliked  by  tax-payers  for  its  burthen- 
someness  ;  looked  down  upon  by  the  industrious  for  Its 
enforced  idleness ;  its  employers  themselves  always  in 
dread  of  its  numbers,  and  jealous  of  its  restlessness, 
which,  in  a  soldier,  is  but  the  impatience  of  a  man  who 
is  useless  and  nobody,  for  a  chance  of  being  useful  and 
of  beino;  somethinoj.  The  soldier  thus  remains  with  all 
the  burthens,  all  the  irksome  restraints,  of  his  condition  ; 
aggravated,  but  without  the  hopes  which  lighted  it  up, 
the  excitements  which  gave  it  zest.  Those  alone,  says 
M.  de  Vigny,  who  have  been  soldiers,  know  w^hat  ser- 
vitude is.  To  the  soldier  alone  is  obedience,  passive 
and  active,  the  law  of  his  life,  —  the  law  of  every  day 
and  of  every  moment ;  obedience,  not  stopping  at 
sacrifice,  nor  even  at  crime.  In  him  alone  is  the  abne- 
gation of  his  self-will,  of  his  liberty  of  independent 
action,  absolute  and  unreserved;  the  grand  distinction 
of  humanity,  the  responsibility  of  the  individual  as  a 
moral  agent,  being  made  over,  once  for  all,  to  superior 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY.  335 

authority.  The  type  of  human  nature  which  these  cir- 
cumstances create  well  deserves  the  study  of  the  artist 
and  the  philosopher.  M.  de  Vigny  has  deeply  medi- 
tated on  it.  He  has  drawn  with  delicacy  and  pro- 
fundity that  mixture  of  Spartan  and  stoical  impassibility 
with  child-like  insouciance  and  bonhomie,  which  is 
the  result,  on  the  one  hand,  of  a  life  of  painful  and 
difficult  obedience  to  discipline ;  on  the  other,  of  a 
conscience  freed  from  concern  or  accountability  for  the 
quality  of  the  actions  of  which  that  life  is  made  up. 
On  the  means  by  which  the  moral  position  of  the 
soldier  might  be  raised,  and  his  hardships  alleviated, 
M.  de  Vigny  has  ideas  worthy  of  the  consideration 
of  him  who  is  yet  to  come,  —  the  statesman  who  has 
care  and  leisure  for  plans  of  social  amelioration  uncon- 
nected with  party  contests  and  the  cry  of  the  hour. 
His  stories,  full  of  melancholy  beauty,  will  carry  into 
thousands  of  minds  and  hearts,  which  would  otherwise 
have  been  un visited  by  it,  a  conception  of  a  soldier's 
trials  and  a  soldier's  virtues  in  times  which,  like  ours, 
are  not  those  of  martial  glory. 

The  first  of  these  tales  at  least,  if  not  all  the  three, 
if  the  author's  words  are  to  be  taken  literally,  is  un- 
varnished fact.  But  familiar  as  the  modern  French 
romance  writers  have  made  us  with  the  artifice  of  as- 
similating their  fictions,  for  the  sake  of  artistic  reality, 
to  actual  recollections,  we  dare  not  trust  these  appear- 
ances ;  and  we  must  needs  suppose,  that,  though  sug- 
gested by  facts,  the  stories  are  indebted  to  M.  de 
Vigny's  invention  not  only  for  their  details,  but  for  some 
of  their  main  circumstances.  If  he  had  been  so  fortunate 
as  to  meet  with  facts,  which,  related  as  they  actually 


336  ALFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

occurred,  sened  so  perfectly  as  these  do  his  purposes 
of  ilkistration,  he  would  hardly  have  left  any  possibility 
of  doubt  as  fo  their  authenticity.  He  must  know  the 
infinite  distance,  as  to  power  of  influencing  the  mind, 
between  the  best  contrived  and  most  probable  fiction 
and  the  smallest  fact. 

The  first  tale,  "Laurette,  ou  Le  Cachet  Rouge,"  is 
the  story  of  an  old  chef  de  hataillon  (an  intermediate 
grade  between  captain  and  major) ,  whom  the  author, 
when  following  Louis  XVIII.  in  the  retreat  to  Ghent, 
overtook  on  his  march.  This  old  man  was  leadinof 
along  the  miry  road,  on  a  day  of  pelting  rain,  a  shabby 
mule  drawing  "  a  little  wooden  cart  covered  over  with 
three  hoops  and  a  piece  of  black  oil-cloth,  and  resem- 
bling a  cradle  on  a  pair  of  wheels."  On  duty  he  was 
escorting  the  king  as  far  as  the  frontier;  and  on  duty  he 
was  about  to  return  from  thence  to  his  regiment,  to  fight 
against  the  king;  at  Waterloo.  He  had  benjun  life  at 
sea,  and  had  been  taken  from  the  merchant  service 
to  command  a  brig  of  war,  when  the  navy,  like  the 
army,  was  left  without  officers  by  the  emigration.  In 
1797,  under  the  government  of  the  Directory,  he 
weighed  anchor  for  Cayenne,  with  sixty  soldiers  and  a 
prisoner,  —  one  of  those  whom  the  coup  (fetat  of  the 
18th  of  Fructidor  had  consigned  to  deportation.  Along 
with  this  prisoner,  wliom  he  was  ordered  to  treat  with 
respect,  he  received  a  packet  "  with  three  red  seals,  the 
middle  one  of  enormous  size,"  not  to  be  opened  till  the 
vessel  reached  one  degree  north  of  the  line.  As  he 
was  nailing  up  this  packet,  the  possession  of  which 
made  liim  feel  uncomfortable,  in  a  nook  of  his  cabin,  * 
safe  and  in  sight,  his  prisoner,  a  mere  youth,  entered, 


^        ALFRED   DE    VIGNY.  337 

holding  by  the  hand  a  beautiful  girl  of  seventeen.  His 
offence,  it  appeared,  was  a  newspaper  artick  ;  he  had 
"  trusted  in  their  liberty  of  the  press  ;  "  had  stung  the 
Directory ;  and,  only  four  days  after  his  marriage,  he 
was  seized,  tried,  and  received  sentence  of  death,  com- 
muted for  deportation  to  Cayenne,  whither  his  young 
wife  determined  on  accompanying  him.  We  will  not 
trust  ourselves  to  translate  any  of  the  scenes  which 
exhibit  these  two  :  a  Marryat  would  be  required  to  find 
a  style  for  rendering  the  sailor-like  naivete  of  the  honest 
*  officer's  recital.  A  more  exquisite  picture  we  have 
never  seen  of  innocence  and  ingenousness,  true  warm- 
hearted affection,  and  youthful  buoyancy  of  spirits 
breaking  out  from  under  the  load  of  care  and  sorrow 
which  had  been  laid  so  early  and  so  suddenly  on  their 
young  heads.  They  won  the  good-natured  captain's 
heart.  He  had  no  family  and  no  ties.  He  offered,  on 
arriving  at  Cayenne,  to  settle  there  with  his  little  sav- 
ings, and  adopt  them  as  his  children.  On  reaching  the 
prescribed  latitude,  he  broke  the  fatal  seal,  and  shud- 
dered at  beholding  the  sentence  of  death,  and  an  order 
for  immediate  execution.  After  a  terrible  internal 
struggle,  military  disciphne  prevailed ;  he  did  as  was 
commanded  him;  and  "that  moment,"  says  he,  "has 
lasted  for  me  to  the  present  time  :  as  long  as  I  live,  I 
shall  drag  it  after  me  as  a  galley-slave  drags  his  chain." 
Laurette  became  an  incurable  idiot.  "  I  felt  something 
in  me  which  said.  Remain  with  her  to  the  end  of  thy 
days,  and  protect  her."  Her  mother  was  dead  :  her 
relations  wished  to  put  her  into  a  madhouse.  "I  turned 
my  back  upon  them,  and  kept  her  with  me."  Taking 
a  disgust  to  the  sea,  he  exchanged  into  the  army :  the 
VOL.  I.  22 


338  ALFRED   DE   VIGNT. 

unhappy  girl  was  with  him  in  all  Napoleon's  campaigns,- 
even  in  the  retreat  from  Russia,  tended  by  him  like  a 
daughter ;  and,  when  the  author  overtook  him,  he  was 
conducting  her  in  the  cart  with  its  three  hoops  and  its 
canvas  cover.  The  author  shows  her  to  us,  —  a  picture 
not  inferior  to  Sterne's  Maria,  and  which  deserves  to  live 
as  long  :  to  detach  it  from  the  rest  of  the  story  would  be 
unjust  to  the  author.  M.  de  Vigny  parted  from  the  old 
officer  at  the  frontier,  and  learnt,  long  after,  that  he 
perished  at  Waterloo  :  she,  left  alone,  and  consigned  to 
a  madhouse,  died  in  three  days. 

"  La  Veill^e  de  Vincennes  "  is  a  less  tragical  story  : 
the  life  and  destiny  of  an  old  adjutant  of  artillery,  with 
whom  the  author,  an  officer  in  the  guards,  then  in 
garrison  at  Vincennes,  made  acquaintance,  in  the  court- 
yard of  the  fortress,  the  evening  previous  to  a  general 
review  and  inspection.  The  old  adjutant,  who  was  in 
charge  of  the  powder,  was  anxiously  casting  up  long 
columns  of  figures  ;  feeling  himself  eternally  disgraced 
if  there  should  be  found  on  the  morrow  the  most  triflinop 
inaccuracy  in  his  books  ;  and  regretting  the  impossibili- 
ty, from  the  late  hour,  of  giving  another  glance  that 
night  at  the  contents  of  the  powder  magazine.  The 
soldiers  of  the  guard,  who  were  not  merely  the  elite  of 
the  army,  but  the  elite  of  the  elite,  "thought  them- 
selves," says  our  author,  "dishonored  by  the  most  insig- 
nificant fault."  "  Go,  you  are  puritans  of  honor,  all  of 
you,"  said  I,  tapping  him  on  the  shoulder.  He  bowed, 
and  withdrew  towards  the  barrack  where  he  was  quar- 
tered :  then,  with  an  innocence  of  manners  peculiar  to 
the  honest  race  of  soldiers,  he  returned  with  a  handful 
of  hempseed  for  a  hen  who  was  bringing  up  her  twelve 


ALFRED   DE    VIGNY.  339 

chickens  under  the  old  bronze  cannon  on  which  we  were 
seated."  This  hen,  the  delight  of  her  master  and  the 
pet  of  the  soldiers,  could  not  endure  any  person  not  in 
uniform.  At  a  late  hour  that  nio^ht,  the  author  caught 
the  sound  of  music  from  an  open  window.  He  ap- 
proached :  the  voices  were  those  of  the  old  adjutant,  his 
daughter,  and  a  young  non-commissioned  officer  of 
artillery,  her  intended  husband :  they  saw  him,  invited 
him  in  ;  and  we  owe  to  this  evening  a  charming  descrip- 
tion of  the  simple,  innocent  interior  of  this  little  family, 
and  their  simple  history.  The  old  soldier  was  the  orphan 
child  of  a  \'illager  of  Montreuil,  near  Versailles  ;  brought 
up,  and  taught  music  and  gardening,  by  the  cur 6  of  his 
village.  At  sixteen,  a  word  sportively  dropped  by 
Marie  Antoinette,  when,  alone  with  the  Princess  de 
Lamballe,  she  met  him  and  his  pretty  playmate 
Pierrette  in  the  park  of  Montreuil,  made  him  enlist  as 
a  soldier,  hoping  to  be  made  a  sergeant,  and  to  marry 
Pierrette.  The  latter  wish  was  in  time  accomplished 
through  the  benevolence  of  Marie  Antoinette,  who,  find- 
ing: him  resolute  not  to  owe  the  attainment  of  his  wishes 
to  the  bounty  of  a  patron,  herself  taught  Pierrette  to  sing 
and  act  in  the  opera  of  "  Rose  et  Colas  ;  "  and  through 
her  protection  the  dehut  of  the  unknown  actress  was  so 
successful,  that  in  one  representation  she  earned  a  suit- 
able portion  for  a  soldier's  wife.  The  merit  of  this 
little  anecdote,  of  course,  lies  in  the  management  of  the 
details,  which,  for  nature  and  gracefulness,  would  do 
credit  to  the  first  names  in  French  literature.  Pierrette 
died  young,  leaving  her  husband  with  two  treasures,  — 
an  only  daughter,  and  a  miniature  of  herself,  painted  by 
the  Princess  de  Lamballe.     Since  then,  he  had  lived  a 


340  ALFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

life  of  obscure  integrity,  and  had  received  all  the  mili- 
tary honoi's  attainable  by  a  private  soldier,  but  no  pro- 
motion ;  which,  indeed,  he  had  never  much  sought, 
thinking  it  a  greater  honor  to  be  a  sergeant  in  the  guard 
than  a  captain  in  the  line.  "  How  poor,"  thought  M. 
de  Vigny,  "  are  the  mad  ambitions  and  discontents  of 
us  young  officers,  compared  with  the  soul  of  a  soldier 
like  this,  scrupulous  of  his  honor,  and  thinking  it  sullied 
by  the  most  trifling  negligence,  or  breach  of  discipline  ; 
without  ambition,  vanity,  or  luxury  ;  always  a  slave,  and 
always  content,  and  proud  of  his  servitude ;  his  dearest 
recollection  being  one  of  gratitude  ;  and  believing  his 
destiny  to  be  regulated  for  his  good  by  an  overruling 
Providence  ! " 

An  hour  or  two  after  this  time,  the  author  was  awa- 
kened from  sleep  by  something  like  the  shock  of  an 
earthquake :  part  of  one  of  the  powder  -  magazines 
had  exploded.  With  difficulty  and  peril,  the  garrison 
stopped  the  spread  of  mischief.  On  reaching  the  seat 
of  the  catastrophe,  they  found  the  fragments  of  the 
body  of  the  old  adjutant,  who,  apparently  ha\dng  risen 
at  early  dawn  for  one  more  examination  of  the  powder, 
had,  by  some  accident,  set  it  on  fire.  The  king  pres- 
ently arrived  to  return  thanks  and  distribute  rewards : 
he  came,  and  departed.  "  I  thought,"  says  M.  de  Vig- 
ny, "  of  the  family  of  the  poor  adjutant ;  but  I  was  alone 
in  thinking  of  them.  In  general,  when  princes  pass 
anywhere,  they  pass  too  quickly." 

"La  Vie  et  la  Mort  du  Capitaine  Renaud,  ou  La 
Canne  de  Jonc,"  is  a  picture  of  a  more  elevated  descrip- 
tion than  either  of  these  two,  delineating  a  character  of 
greater  intellectual  power  and  a  loftier  moral  greatness. 


ALFRED   DE    VIGNY.  341 

Capt.  Renaud  is  a  philosopher,  —  one  like  those  of  old, 
who  has  learnt  the  wisdom  of  life  from  its  experiences ; 
has  weighed  in  the  balance  the  greatnesses  and  little- 
nesses of  the  world ;  and  has  carried  with  him  from 
every  situation  in  which  he  has  been  placed,  and  every 
trial  and  temptation  to  which  he  has  been  subject,  the 
impressions  it  was  fitted  to  leave  on  a  thoughtful  and 
sensitive  mind.  There  is  no  story,  no  incident,  in  this 
life  :  there  is  but  a  noble  character,  unfolding  to  us  the 
process  of  its  own  formation ;  not  so  much  telling  us, 
as  making  us  see,  how  one  circumstance  disabused  it  of 
false  objects  of  esteem  and  admiration,  how  another 
revealed  to  it  the  true.  We  feel  with  the  young  soldier 
his  youthful  enthusiasm  for  Napoleon,  and  for  all  of 
which  that  name  is  a  symbol ;  we  see  this  enthusiasm 
die  within  him  as  the  truth  dawns  upon  him  that  this 
great  man  is  an  actor ;  that  the  prestige  with  which  he 
overawed  the  world  is  in  much,  if  not  in  the  largest 
portion  of  it,  the  effect  of  stage-trick ;  and  that  a  life 
built  upon  deception,  and  directed  to  essentially  selfish 
ends,  is  not  the  ideal  he  had  worshipped.  He  learns 
to  know  a  real  hero  in  Collingwood,  whose  prisoner  he 
is  for  five  years  ;  and  never  was  that  most  beautiful  of 
military  and  naval  characters  drawn  in  a  more  loving 
spirit,  or  with  a  nobler  appreciation,  than  in  this  book. 
From  Collingwood,  all  hi&  life  a  martyr  to  duty ;  the 
benignant  father  and  guardian  angel  of  all  under  his 
command ;  who,  pining  for  an  English  home,  his  chil- 
dren growing  up  to  womanhood  without  having  seen 
him,  lived  and  died  at  sea,  because  his  country  or  his 
country's  institutions  could  not  furnish  him  a  successor, 
—  from  him  the  hero  of  our  author's  tale  learnt  to  ex- 


342  ALFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

change  the  paltry  admiration  of  mere  power  and  success, 
the  worship  of  the  vulgar  objects  of  ambition  and  vanity, 
for  a  heartfelt  recognition  of  the  greatness  of  devotion 
and  self-sacrifice.  A  spirit  like  that  of  CoUingwood 
governed  and  pervaded  the  remainder  of  his  life.  One 
bitter  remembrance  he  had :  it  was  of  a  night  attack 
upon  a  Russian  outpost,  in  Avhich,  hardly  awakened 
from  sleep,  an  innocent  and  beautiful  youth  —  one  of  the 
boys  of  fourteen  who  sometimes  held  officers'  commis- 
sions in  the  Russian  army  —  fell  dead,  in  his  gray-haired 
father's  sight,  by  the  unconscious  hand  of  Renaud.  He 
never  used  sabre  more  ;  and  was  known  to  the  soldiers 
by  carrying  ever  after  a  canne  de  jonc,  which  dropped 
from  the  dying  hand  of  the  poor  boy.  Many  and 
solemn  were  the  thoughts  on  war,  and  the  destiny  of 
a  soldier,  which  grew  in  him  from  this  passage  in  his 
Hfe ;  nor  did  it  ever  cease  to  haunt  his  remembrance, 
and,  at  times,  vex  his  conscience  with  misgivings.  Un- 
ambitious, unostentatious,  and  therefore  unnoticed,  he 
did  his  duty,  always  and  everywhere,  without  reward 
or  distinction,  until,  in  the  Three  Days  of  July,  1830, 
a  military  point  of  honor  retaining  him  with  his  corps 
on  the  Royalist  side,  he  received  his  death- wound  by  a 
shot  from  a  poor  street-boy,  who  tended  him  in  tears 
and  remorse  in  his  last  moments,  and  to  whom  he  left 
by  will  a  provision  for  his  education  and  maintenance, 
on  condition  that  he  should  not  become  a  soldier. 

Such  is  a  brief  outline  of  this  remarkable  book ;  to 
which  we  have  felt  throughout,  and  feel  still  more  on 
looking  back,  what  scanty  justice  we  have  done. 
Among  the  writings  of  our  day,  we  know  not  one  which 
breathes  a  nobler  spirit,  or  In  which  every  detail  is  con- 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY.  343 

ceived  and  wrought  out  in  a  manner  more  worthy  of 
that  spirit.  But  whoever  would  know  what  it  is  must 
read  the  book  itself.  No  resume  can  convey  any  idea 
of  it.  The  impression  it  makes  is  not  the  sum  of  the 
impressions  of  particular  incidents  or  particular  sayings  : 
it  is  the  effect  of  the  tone  and  coloring  of  the  whole. 
We  do  not  seem  to  be  listening  to  the  author,  — to  be 
receiving  a  "  moral "  from  any  of  his  stories,  or  from 
his  characters  an  "  example "  prepense :  the  poem  of 
human  life  is  opened  before  us ;  and  M.  de  Vigny 
does  but  chant  from  it,  in  a  voice  of  subdued  sadness, 
a  few  strains  telling  of  obsure  wisdom  and  unrewarded 
virtue  ;  of  those  antique  characters,  which,  without  self- 
glorification,  or  hope  of  being  appreciated,  "  carry  out," 
as  he  expresses  it,  "the  sentiment  of  duty  to  its  ex- 
tremest  consequences,"  and  whom  he  avers,  as  a  matter 
of  personal  experience,  that  he  has  never  met  with  in 
any  walk  of  life  but  the  profession  of  arms. 

"  Stello  "  is  a  work  of  similar  merit  to  the  "  Military 
Recollections,"  though,  we  think,  somewhat  inferior. 
The  poet  and  his  condition  —  the  function  he  has  to 
perform  in  the  world,  and  its  treatment  of  him  —  are 
the  subject  of  the  book.  Stello,  a  young  poet,  having, 
it  would  appear,  no  personal  cause  of  complaint  against 
the  world,  but  subject  to  fits  of  nervous  despondency, 
seeks  relief  under  one  of  these  attacks  from  a  mysterious 
personage,  the  docteur  noir;  and  discloses  to  him,  that 
in  his  ennui,  and  his  thirst  for  activity  and  excitement, 
he  has  almost  determined  to  fling  himself  into  politics, 
and  sacrifice  himself  for  some  one  of  the  parties,  or  forms 
of  government,  which  are  struggling  with  one  another  in 


344  ALFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

the  world.  The  doctor  prescribes  to  him  three  stories, 
exhibiting  the  fate  of  the  poet  under  every  form  of 
government,  and  the  fruitlessness  of  his  expecting  from 
the  world,  or  from  men  of  the  world,  aught  but  negli- 
gence or  contempt.  The  stories  are  of  three  poets  (all 
of  whom  the  docteiir  noir  has  seen  die ;  as,  in  fact,  the 
same  person  might  have  been  present  at  all  their  deaths) , 
under  three  different  governments, — in  an  absolute 
monarchy,  a  constitutional  government,  and  a  demo- 
cratic revolution.  Gilbert,  the  poet  and  satirist,  called 
from  his  poverty  Gilbert  sans-culotte,  who  died  mad 
in  a  hospital  at  Paris,  — he  who  wrote  in  the  last  days 
of  his  life  the  verses  beorinninor  — 

"  Au  banquet  de  la  vie  infortun^  convive 
J'apparus  un  jour,  et  je  meurs; " 

Chatterton,  — 

"  The  marvellous  boy, 
The  sleepless  soul,  who  perished  in  his  pride,"  — 

driven  to  suicide  at  eighteen  by  the  anguish  of  disap- 
pointment and  neglect ;  and  Andr^  Chenier,  the  elder 
brother  of  Chdnier  the  revolutionary  poet,  whose  own 
poems,  published  not  till  many  years  after  his  death, 
were  at  once  hailed  by  the  new  school  of  poetry  in 
France  as  having  anticipated  what  they  had  since  done, 
and  given  the  real  commencement  to  the  new  era :  he 
perished  by  the  guillotine  only  two  days  before  the  fall 
of  Robespierre.  On  the  scaffold,  he  exclaimed,  strik- 
ing his  forehead,  "H  y  avait  pourtant  quelque  chose 
l§k ! "  The  stories  adhere  strictly  to  the  spirit  of  his- 
tory, though  not  to  the  literal  facts  ;  and  are,  as  usual, 
beautifully  told,  especially  the  last  and  most  elaborate 
of  them,  "  Andr^  Chdnier."     In  this  tale,  we  are  shown 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY.  345 

the  prison  of  Saint-Lazare  during  the  reign  of  terror, 
and  the  courtesies  and  gallantries  of  polished  life  still 
blossoming  in  the  foulness  of  the  dungeon  and  on  the 
brink  of  the  tomb.  Madame  de  St.  Aignan,  with  her 
reserved  and  delicate  passion  for  Andr^  Ch^nier,  is 
one  of  the  most  graceful  of  M.  de  Vigny's  creations. 
We  are  brought  into  the  presence  of  Robespierre  and 
Saint-Just,  who  are  drawn,  not  indeed  like  Catos  and 
Brutuses ;  though  there  have  been  found,  in  our  time. 
Frenchmen  not  indisposed  to  take  that  view  of  them. 
But  the  hatred  of  exaggeration  which  always  character- 
izes M.  de  Vigny  does  not  desert  him  here :  the  ter- 
rorist chiefs  do  not  figure  in  his  pages  as  monsters 
thirsting  for  blood,  nor  as  hypocrites  and  injpostors  with 
merely  the  low  aims  of  selfish  ambition  :  either  of  these 
representations  would  have  been  false  to  history.  He 
shows  us  these  men  as  they  were,  as  such  men  could 
not  but  have  been ;  men  distinguished,  morally,  chiefly 
by  two  qualities,  —  entire  hardness  of  heart,  and  the 
most  overweenino:  and  bloated  self-conceit :  for  nothinof 
less,  assuredly,  could  lead  any  man  to  believe  that  his 
individual  judgment  respecting  the  public  good  is  a 
warrant  to  him  for  exterminating  all  who  are  suspected 
of  forming  any  other  judgment,  and  for  setting  up  a 
machine  to  cut  off  heads,  sixty  or  seventy  every  day, 
till  some  unknown  futurity  be  accomplished,  some  Uto- 
pia realized. 

The  lesson  which  the  docteur  noir  finds  in  these 
tragical  histories,  for  the  edification  of  poets,  is  still 
that  of  abnegation ;  to  expect  nothing  for  themselves 
from  changes  in  society  or  in  political  institutions ;  to 
renounce  for  ever  the  idea  that  the  world  will,  or  can 


346  ALFKED   DE    VIGNY. 

be  expected,  to  fall  at  their  feet,  and  worship  them ;  to 
consider  themselves,  once  for  all,  as  martyrs,  if  they 
are  so ;  and,  instead  of  complaining,  to  take  up  their 
cross,  and  bear  it. 

This  counsel  is  so  essentially  wise,  and  so  much  re- 
quired everywhere,  but  above  all  in  France,  where  the 
idea  that  intellect  ought  to  rule  the  world  —  an  idea  in 
itself  true  and  just  —  has  taken  such  root,  that  every 
youth,  who  fancies  himself  a  thinker  or  an  artist,  thinks 
that  he  has  a  right  to  every  thing  society  has  to  give, 
and  deems  himself  the  victim  of  ingratitude  because  he 
is  not  loaded  with  its  riches  and  honors.  M.  de  Vigny 
has  so  genuine  a  feeling  of  the  true  greatness  of  a  poet, 
of  the  spirit,  which  has  dwelt  in  all  poets  deserving  the 
name  of  great,  that  he  may  be  pardoned  for  what  there 
is  in  his  picture  of  a  poet's  position  and  destiny  in  the 
actual  world,  somewhat  morbid  and  overcharged,  though 
with  a  foundation  of  universal  truth.  It  is  most  true, 
that,  whether  in  poetry  or  in  philosophy,  a  person 
endowed  in  any  eminent  degree  with  genius,  —  original- 
ity,—  the  gift  of  seeing  truths  at  a  greater  depth  than 
the  world  can  penetrate,  or  of  feeling  deeply  and  justly 
things  which  the  world  has  not  yet  learnt  to  feel,  — that 
such  a  person  needs  not  hope  to  be  appreciated,  to  be 
otherwise  than  made  light  of,  and  evil  entreated,  in 
virtue  of  what  is  greatest  in  him, — his  genius.  For 
(except  in  things  which  can  be  reduced  to  mathematical 
demonstration,  or  made  obvious  to  sense)  that  which  all 
mankind  will  be  prepared  to  see  and  understand  to- 
morrow, it  cannot  require  much  genius  to  perceive 
to-day ;  and  all  persons  of  distinguished  originality, 
whether  thinkers  or  artists,  are  subject  to  the  eternal 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY.  Si? 

law,  that  they  must  themselves  create  the  tastes  or  the 
habits  of  thought  by  means  of  which  they  will  after- 
wards be  appreciated.  No  great  poet  or  philosopher 
since  the  Christian  era  (apart  from  the  accident  of  a 
rich  patron)  could  have  gained  either  rank  or  subsist- 
ence as  a  poet  or  a  philosopher  ;  but  things  are  not,  and 
have  seldom  been,  so  badly  ordered  in  the  world,  as  that 
he  could  not  get  it  in  any  other  way.  Chatterton,  and 
probably  Gilbert,  could  have  earned  an  honest  liveli- 
hood, if  their  inordinate  pride  would  have  accepted  it 
in  the  common  paths  of  obscure  industry.  And  much 
as  it  is  to  be  lamented,  for  the  world's  sake  more  than 
that  of  the  individual,  that  they  who  are  equal  to  the 
noblest  things  are  not  reserved  for  such,  it  is  never- 
theless true,  that  persons  of  genius  —  persons  whose 
superiority  is,  that  they  can  do  what  others  cannot  do  — 
can  generally  also,  if  they  choose,  do  better  than  others 
that  which  others  do,  and  which  others  are  willing  to 
honor  and  reward.  If  they  cannot,  it  is  usually  from 
something  ill  regulated  in  themselves,  —  something,  to 
be  cured  of  which  would  be  for  the  health  even  of  their 
own  minds  ;  perhaps  oftenest  because  they  will  not  take 
the  pains  which  less  gifted  persons  are  willing  to  take, 
though  less  than  half  as  much  would  suffice ;  because 
the  habit  of  doing  with  ease  things  on  a  large  scale 
makes  them  impatient  of  slow  and  unattractive  toil.  It 
is  their  own  choice,  then.  If  they  wish  for  worldly 
honor  and  profit,  let  them  seek  it  in  the  way  others  do. 
The  struggle,  indeed,  is  hard,  and  the  attainment  un- 
certain ;  but  not  specially  so  to  them  :  on  the  contrary, 
they  have  advantages  over  most  of  their  competitors. 
If  they  prefer  their  nobler  vocation,  they  have  no  cause 


348  ALFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

of  quarrel  with  the  world  because  they  follow  that  vo- 
cation under  the  conditions  necessarily  implied  in  it.  If 
it  were  possible  that  they  should  from  the  first  have  the 
acclamations  of  the  world,  they  could  not  be  deserving 
of  them  ;  all  they  could  be  doing  for  the  world  must  be 
comparatively  little :  they  could  not  be  the  great  men 
they  fancy  themselves. 

A  story  or  a  poem  might  nevertheless  be  conceived, 
which  would  throw  tenfold  more  light  upon  the  poetic 
character,  and  upon  the  condition  of  a  poet  in  the 
world,  than  any  instance,  either  historical  or  fictitious, 
of  the  world's  undervaluing  of  him.  It  would  exhibit 
the  sufferings  of  a  poet,  not  from  mortified  vanity,  but 
from  the  poetic  temperament  itself,  under  arrange- 
ments of  society,  made  by  and  for  harder  natures  ;  and 
in  a  world,  which,  for  any  but  the  unsensitive,  is  not  a 
place  of  contentment  ever,  nor  of  peace  till  after  many 
a  hard-fought  battle.  That  M.  de  Vigny  could  con- 
ceive such  a  subject  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  should  be 
conceived  is  clear  from  the  signs  by  which  his  Stello 
recognizes  himself  as  a  poet.  "Because  there  is  in 
nature  no  beauty  nor  grandeur  nor  harmony  which  does 
not  cause  in  me  a  prophetic  thrill ;  which  does  not 
fill  me  with  a  deep  emotion,  and  swell  my  eyelids  with 
tears  divine  and  inexplicable.  Because  of  the  infinite 
pity  I  feel  for  mankind,  my  companions  in  suffering ; 
and  the  eager  desire  I  feel  to  hold  out  my  hand  to 
them,  and  raise  them  incessantly  by  words  of  com- 
miseration and  of  love.  Because  I  feel  in  my  inmost 
being  an  invisible  and  undefinable  power,  which  resem- 
bles a  presentiment  of  the  future,  and  a  revelation  of 
the  mysterious  causes  of  the  present,"  —  a  presentiment 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY.  34.9 

which  is  not  always  imaginary,  but  often  the  instinctive 
insight  of  a  sensitive  nature,  which,  from  its  finer 
texture,  vibrates  to  impressions  so  evanescent  as  to  be 
unfelt  by  others  y  and  by  that  faculty,  as  by  an  addi- 
tional sense,  is  apprised,  it  cannot  tell  how,  of  things 
without,  which  escape  the  cognizance  of  the  less  deli- 
cately organized. 

These  are  the  tests,  or  some  of  the  tests,  of  a  poetic 
nature ;  and  it  must  be  evident,  that  to  such,  even 
when  supported  by  a  positive  religious  faith,  and  that  a 
cheerful  one,  this  life  is  naturally,  or  at  least  may  easily 
be,  a  vale  of  tears,  — a  place  in  which  there  is  no  rest. 
The  poet  who  would  speak  of  such  must  do  it  in  the 
spirit  of  those  beautiful  lines  of  Shelley,  —  himself  the 
most  perfect  type  of  that  which  he  described  :  — 

"  High,  spirit-winged  heart,  who  dost  for  ever 
Beat  thine  unfeeling  bars  with  vain  endeavor, 
Till  those  bright  plumes  of  thought,  in  which  arrayed 
It  over-soared  this  low  and  worldly  shade, 
Lie  shattered ;  and  thy  panting,  wounded  breast 
Stains  with  dear  blood  its  unmaternal  nest! 
I  weep  vain  tears :  blood  would  less  bitter  be. 
Yet  poured  forth  gladlier,  could  it  profit  thee." 

The  remainder  of  M.  de  Yigny's  works  are  plays 
and  poems.  The  plays  are  "Le  More  de  Yenise,"  — 
a  well-executed  and  very  close  translation  of  Othello ; 
"La  Mar^chale  d'Ancre,"  from  the  same  period  of 
history  as  "  Cinq-Mars  ;  "  and  "  Chatteron,"  the  story  in 
"  Stello,"  with  the  characters  more  developed,  the  out- 
line more  filled  up.  Without  disparagement  to  these 
works,  we  think  the  narrative  style  more  suitable  than 
the  dramatic  to  the  quality  of  M.  de  Vigny's  genius.  If 
we  had  not  read  these  plays,  we  should  not  have  knovra 


350  ALFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

how  much  of  the  impressiveness  of  his  other  writings 
comes  from  his  own  presence  in  them  (if  the  expression 
may:  be  allowed) ,  animating  and  harmonizing  the  pic- 
ture by  blending  with  its  natural  tints  the  coloring  of 
,  his  own  feelings  and  character. 

Of  the  poems  much  were  to  be  said,  if  a  foreigner 
could  be  considered  altogether  a  competent  judge  of 
them.  For  our  own  pai-t,  we  confess,  that,  of  the  ad- 
mirable poetry  to  be  found  in  French  literature,  that 
part  is  most  poetry  to  us  which  is  written  in  prose. 
In  regard  to  verse-writing,  we  would  even  exceed  the 
severity  of  Horace's  precept  against  mediocrity :  we 
hold,  that  nothing  should  be  written  in  verse  which  is 
not  exquisite.  In  prose,  any  thing  may  be  said  which 
is  worth  saying  at  all ;  in  verse,  only  what  is  worth 
saying  better  than  prose  can  say  it.  The  gems  alone 
of  thought  and  fancy  are  worth  setting  with  so  finished 
and  elaborate  a  workmanship  ;  and,  even  of  them,  those 
only  whose  eflfect  Is  heightened  by  it :  which  takes  place 
under  two  conditions  ;  and  in  one  or  other  of  these  two, 
if  we  are  not  mistaken,  must  be  found  the  origin  and 
justification  of  all  composition  in  verse.  A  thought 
or  feeling  requires  verse  for  its  adequate  expression, 
when,  in  order  that  it  may  dart  into  the  soul  with  the 
speed  of  a  lightning-flash,  the  ideas  or  images  that  are 
to  convey  it  require  to  be  pressed  closer  together  than 
is  compatible  with  the  rigid  grammatical  construction 
of  the  prose  sentence.  One  recommendation  of  verse, 
therefore,  is,  that  it  affords  a  language  more  condensed 
than  prose.  The  other  is  derived  from  one  of  the 
natural  laws  of  the  human  mind,  in  the  utterance  of  its 
thoughts  impregnated  with  its  feelings.      All  emotion 


AUFRED    DE    VIGNY.  351 

which  has  taken  possession  of  the  whole  being ;  which 
flows  unresistedly,  and  therefore  equably,  —  instinctive- 
ly seeks  a  language  that  flows  equably  like  itself;  and 
must  either  find  it,  or  be  conscious  of  an  unsatisfied 
want,  which  even  impedes,  and  prematurely  stops,  the 
flow  of  the  feeling.  Henca,  ever  since  man  has  been 
man,  all  deep  and  sustained  feeling  has  tended  to  ex- 
press itself  in  rhythmical  language  ;  and  the  deeper  the 
feeling,  the  more  characteristic  and  decided  the  rhythm ; 
provided  always  the  feeling  be  sustained  as  well  as 
deep  :  for  a  fit  of  passion  has  no  natural  connection 
with  verse  or  music ;  a  mood  of  passion  has  the  strong- 
est. No  one,  who  does  not  hold  this  distinction  in 
view,  will  comprehend  the  importance  which  the  Greek 
law-givers  and  philosophers  attached  to  music,  and 
which  appears  inexplicable,  till  we  understand  how 
perpetual  an  aim  of  their  polity  it  was  to  subdue  fits  of 
passion,  and  to  sustain  and  re-enforce  moods  of  it.* 
This  view  of  the  origin  of  rhythmic  utterance  in  gene- 
ral, and  verse  in  particular,  naturally  demands  short 
poems  ;  it  being  impossible  that  a  feeling  so  intense  as 
to  require  a  more  rhythmical  cadence  than  that  of  elo- 
quent prose  should  sustain  itself  at  its  highest  elevation 
for  long  together  :  and  we  think  (heretical  as  the  opin- 

*  "  The  Dorian  mood 
Of  flutes  and  soft  recorders,  such  as  raised 
To  height  of  noblest  temper  heroes  old 
Arming  to  battle;  and,  instead  of  rage, 
Deliberate  valor  breathed,  firm,  and  immoved 
With  dread  of  death,  to  flight  or  foul  retreat ; 
Nor  wanting  power  to  mitigate  and  swage, 
With  solemn  touches,  troubled  thoughts,  and  cha«6 
Anguish  and  doubt  and  fear  and  sorrow  and  pain 
From  mortal  or  immortal  minds." 


352  ALFRED    DE    VIGNY. 

ion  may  be),  that  except  in  the  ages  when  the  absence 
of  written  books  occasioned  all  things  to  be  thrown  into 
verse  for  facility  of  memory,  or  in  those  other  ages  in 
which  writing  in  verse  may  happen  to  be  a  fashion,  a 
long  poem  will  always  be  felt  (though  perhaps  uncon- 
sciously) to  be  something  unnatural  and  hollow  ;  some- 
thing which  it  requires  the  genius  of  a  Homer,  a  Dante, 
or  a  Milton,  to  induce  posterity  to  read,  or  at  least  to 
read  through. 

Verse,  then,  being  only  allowable  where  prose  would 
be  inadequate ;  and  the  inadequacy  of  prose  arising 
either  from  its  not  being  sufficiently  condensed,  or  from 
its  not  having  cadence  enough  to  express  sustained 
passion,  which  is  never  long-winded,  — it  follows,  that, 
if  prolix  writing  is  vulgarly  called  prosy  writing,  a  very 
true  feeling  of  the  distinction  between  verse  and  prose 
shows  itself  in  the  vulgarism  ;  and  that  the  one  unpar- 
donable sin  in  a  versified  composition,  next  to  the 
absence  of  meaning,  and  of  true  meaning,  is  difFuse- 
ness.  From  this  sin  it  will  be  impossible  to  exculpate 
M.  Alfred  de  Vigny.  His  poems,  graceful  and  often 
fanciful  though  they  be,  are,  to  us,  marred  by  their  dif- 
fuseness. 

Of  the  more  considerable  among  them,  that  which 
most  resembles  what,  in  our  conception,  a  poem  ought 
to  be,  is  "  Mo'ise."  The  theme  is  still  the  suiferings  of 
the  man  of  genius,  the  inspired  man,  the  intellectual 
ruler  and  seer :  not  however,  this  time,  the  great  man 
persecuted  by  the  world,  but  the  great  man  honored  by 
it,  and  in  his  natural  place  at  the  helm  of  it ;  he  on 
M^hom  all  rely,  whom  all  reverence,  —  Moses  on  Pisgah, 
Moses  the  appointed  of  God,  the  judge,  captain,  and 


ALFRED   DE    VIGXY.  353 

hierarch  of  the  chosen  race,  — crying  to  God  in  anguish 
of  spirit  for  deliverance  and  rest,  that  the  cares  and 
toils,  the  weariness  and  solitariness  of  heart,  of  him  who 
is  lifted  altogether  above  his  brethren,  be  no  longer 
imposed  upon  him  ;  that  the  Almighty  may  withdraw  his 
gifts,  and  suffer  him  to  sleep  the  sleep  of  common 
humanity.  His  cry  is  heard  ;  when  the  clouds  disperse, 
which  veiled  the  summit  of  the  mountain  from  the 
Israelites  waiting  in  prayer  and  prostration  at  its  foot, 
Moses  is  no  more  seen  :  and  now,  "  marching  towards 
the  promised  land,  Joshua  advanced,  pale  and  pensive 
of  mien ;  for  he  was  already  the  chosen  of  the  Omnipo- 
tent." 

The  longest  of  the  poems  is  "  Eloa ;  or.  The  Sister  of 
the  Angels  ; "  a  story  of  a  bright  being  created  from  a 
tear  of  the  Redeemer,  and  who  falls,  tempted  by  pity 
for  the  Spirit  of  Darkness.  The  idea  is  fine,  and  the 
details  graceful,  —  a  word  we  have  often  occasion  to  use 
in  speaking  of  M.  de  Vigny  :  but  this  and  most  of  his 
other  poems  are  written  in  the  heroic  verse ;  that  is  to 
say,  he  has  aggravated  the  imperfections,  for  his  pur- 
pose, of  the  most  prosaic  language  in  Europe,  by  choos- 
ing to  write  in  its  most  prosaic  metre.  The  absence  of 
prosody,  of  long  and  short  or  accented  and  unaccented 
syllables,  renders  the  French  language  essentially  un- 
musical ;  while  —  the  unbending  structure  of  its  sen- 
tence, of  which  there  is  essentially  but  one  type  for 
verse  and  prose,  almost  precluding  inversions  and 
elisions  —  all  the  screws  and  pegs  of  the  prose  sen- 
tence are  retained  to  encumber  the  verse.  If  it  is  to 
be  raised  at  all  above  prose,  variety  of  rhythm  must  be 
sought  in  variety  of  versification  :  there  is  no  room  for 
VOL.  I.  23 


354  ALFRED   DE    VIGNY. 

it  in  the  monotonous  structure  of  the  heroic  metre. 
Where  is  it  that  Racine,  always  an  admirable  writer, 
appears  to  us  more  than  an  admirable  jorose-writer  ?  In 
his  irregular  metres,  —  in  the  choruses  of  "  Esther  "  and 
of  "Athalie."  It  is  not  wonderful,  then,  if  the  same 
may  be  said  of  M.  de  Vigny.  We  shall  conclude  with 
the  following  beautiful  little  poem,  one  of  the  few  which 
he  has  produced  in  the  style  and  measure  of  lyric 
verse :  — 

"Viens  sur  la  mer,  jeune  fille, 

Sois  sans  efFroi ; 
Viens  sans  tr^sor,  sans  famille, 

Seule  avec  moi. 
Mon  bateau  sur  les  eaux  brille, 

Voi  ses  mats,  voi 
Ses  pavilions  et  sa  quille. 
Ce  n'est  rren  qu'une  coquille, 

Mais  j'y  suis  roi. 

Pour  I'esclave  on  fit  la  terre, 

O  ma  beaute ! 
Mais  pour  I'homme  libre,  austere 

L'immensit^. 
Les  Acts  savent  un  myst^re 

De  volupt6 ; 
Leur  soupir  involontaire 
Veut  dire :  amour  solitaire, 

Et  liberty." 


355 


BE  NT  HAM.* 


There  are  two  men,  recently  deceased,  to  whom  their 
country  is  indebted  not  only  for  the  greater  part  of  the 
important  ideas  which  have  been  thrown  into  circulation 
among  its  thinking  men  in  their  time,  but  for  a  revolu- 
tion in  its  general  modes  of  thought  and  investigation. 
These  men,  dissimilar  in  almost  all  else,  agreed  in  being 
closet-students,  —  secluded  in  a  peculiar  degree,  by  cir-  ^ 
cumstances  and  character,  from  the  business  and  inter- 
course  of  the  world;  and  both  were,  through  a  large 
portion  of  their  lives,  regarded  by  those  who  took  the 
lead  in  opinion  (when  they  happened  to  hear  of  them) 
with  feelings  akin  to  contempt.  But  they  were  des- 
tined to  renew  a  lesson  given  to  mankind  by  every  age, 
and  always  disregarded,  —  to  show  that  speculative 
philosophy,  which  to  the  superficial  appears  a  thing  so 
remote  from  the  business  of  life  and  the  outward  inter- 
ests of  men,  is  in  reality  the  thing  on  earth  which  most 
influences  them,  and,  in  the  long-run,  overbears  every 
other  influence  save  those  which  it  must  itself  obey.  The 
writers  of  whom  we  speak  have  never  been  read  by  the 
multitude ;  except  for  the  more  slight  of  their  works, 
their  readers  have  been  few :  but  they  have  been  the 
teachers  of  the  teachers ;  there  is  hardly  to  be  found  in 
England  an  individual  of  any  importance  in  the  world 

•  London  and  Westminster  Review,  August,  1838. 


356  BENTHAM. 

of  mind,  who  (whatever  opinions  he  may  have  after- 
wards adopted)  did  not  first  learn  to  think  from  one  of 
these  two  ;  and,  though  their  influences  have  but  begun 
to  diffuse  themselves  through  these  intermediate  chan- 
nels over  society  at  large,  there  is  already  scarcely  a 
publication  of  any  consequence,  addressed  to  the  edu- 
cated classes,  which,  if  these  persons  had  not  existed, 
would  not  have  been  different  from  what  it  is.  These 
men  are  Jeremy  Bentham  and  Samuel  Taylor  Cole- 
ridge,—  the  two  great  seminal  minds  of  England  in 
their  age. 

No  comparison  is  intended  here  between  the  minds 
or  influences  of  these  remarkable  men  :  this  were  im- 
possible, unless  there  were  first  formed  a  complete  judg- 
ment of  each,  considered  apart.  It  is  our  intention  to 
attempt,  on  the  present  occasion,  an  estimate  of  one  of 
them ;  the  only  one,  a  complete  edition  of  whose  works 
is  yet  in  progress,  and  who,  in  the  classification  which 
may  be  made  of  all  writers  into  Progressive  and  Con- 
servative, belongs  to  the  same  division  with  ourselves. 
For  although  they  were  far  too  great  men  to  be  cor- 
rectly designated  by  either  appellation  exclusively,  yet, 
in  the  main,  Bentham  was  a  Progressive  philosopher ; 
Coleridge,  a  Conservative  one.  The  influence  of  the 
former  has  made  itself  felt  chiefly  on  minds  of  the  Pro- 
gressive class  ;  of  the  latter,  on  those  of  the  Conserva- 
tive :  and  the  two  systems  of  concentric  circles  which 
the  shock  given  by  them  is  spreading  over  the  ocean  of 
mind  have  only  just  begun  to  meet  and  intersect.  The  • 
writings  of  both  contain  severe  lessons,  to  their  own 
side,  on  many  of  the  errors  and  faults  they  are  addicted 
to  :  but  to  Bentham  it  was  given  to  discern  more  par 


BENTHAM.  357 

ticularlj  those  trutlis  with  which  existing  doctrines  and 
institutions  were  at  variance;  to  Coleridge,  the  neglected 
truths  which  lay  in  them. 

A  man  of  great  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  of  the 
highest    reputation   for    practical    talent    and    sagacity 
among  the  official  men  of  his  time  (himself  no  follower 
of   Bentham,  nor    of  any  partial  or    exclusive    school 
whatever),  once  said  to  us,  as  the  result  of  his  observa- 
tion, that  to  Bentham  more  than   to  any  other  source 
might  be  traced  the  questioning  spirit,  the  disposition  to 
demand  the  why  of  every  thing,  which  had  gained  so 
much  ground  and  was  producing  such  important  conse- 
quences  in  these  times.      The   more  this  assertion  is 
examined,  the  more  true  it  will  be  found.     Bentham  has 
been  in  this  age  and  country  the   great  questioner  of      *^ 
things  established.     It  is  by  the  influence  of  the  modes 
of  thought  with   which  his   writings  inoculated  a  con- 
siderable number  of  thinking  men,  that  the  yoke  of 
authority  has  been  broken,  and  innumerable  opinions, 
formerly  received  on  tradition  as  incontestable,  are  put 
upon  their  defence,  and  required  to  give  an  account  of 
themselves.     AVho,  before  Bentham   (whatever  contro- 
versies might  exist  on  points  of  detail) ,  dared  to  speak 
disrespectfully,  in  express  terms,  of  the  British  Consti- 
tution or  the  English  law  ?     He  did  so  ;  and  his  argu- 
ments  and  his    example   together    encouraged    others. 
We  do  not  mean  that  his  writings  caused  the  Reform  Bill, 
or  that  the  appropriation  clause  owns  him  as  its  parent : 
the  changes  which  have  been  made,  and  the  greater 
changes  which  will  be  made,  in   our  institutions,  are 
not  the  work  of  philosophers,  but  of  the  interests  and 


358  BENTHAM. 

instincts  of  large  portions  of  society  recently  grown  into 
strength.  But  Bentham  gave  voice  to  those  interests 
and  instincts  :  until  he  spoke  out,  those  who  found  our 
institutions  unsuited  to  them  did  not  dare  to  say  so,  did 
not  dare  consciously  to  think  so ;  they  had  never  heard 
the  excellence  of  those  institutions  questioned  by  culti- 
vated men,  by  men  of  acknowledged  intellect ;  and  it 
is  not  in  the  nature  of  uninstructed  minds  to  resist  the 
united  authority  of  the  instructed.  Bentham  broke  the 
spell.  It  was  not  Bentham  by  his  own  writings  :  it 
was  Bentham  through  the  minds  and  pens  which  those 
writings  fed,  —  through  the  men  in  more  direct  contact 
with  the  world,  into  whom  his  spirit  passed.  If  the 
superstition  about  ancestorial  wisdom  has  fallen  into 
decay ;  if  the  public  are  grown  familiar  with  the  idea 
that  their  laws  and  institutions  are  in  great  part,  not  the 
product  of  intellect  and  virtue,  but  of  modern  corruption 
grafted  upon  ancient  barbarism  ;  if  the  hardiest  innova- 
tion is  no  longer  scouted  because  it  is  an  innovation,  — 
establishments  no  longer  considered  sacred  because  they 
are  establishments, — it  will  be  found  that  those  who 
have  accustomed  the  public  mind  to  these  ideas  have 
learnt  them  in  Bentham's  school,  and  that  the  assault  on 
ancient  institutions  has  been,  and  is,  carried  on  for  the 
most  part  with  his  weapons.  It  matters  not,  although 
these  thinkers,  or  indeed  thinkers  of  any  description, 
have  been  but  scantily  found  among  the  persons  promi- 
nently and  ostensibly  at  the  head  of  the  Reform  move- 
ment. All  movements,  except  directly  revolutionary 
ones,  are  headed,  not  by  those  who  originate  them,  but 
by  those  who  know  best  how  to  compromise  between 
the  old  opinions  and  the  new.     The  father  of  English 


BENTHAM.  359 

innovation,  both  in  doctrines  and  in  institutions,  is 
Bentham  :  he  is  the  great  subversive,  or,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Continental  philosophers,  the  great  critical^ 
thinker  of  his  age  and  country. 

We  consider  this,  however,  to  be  not  his  highest  title 
to  fame.  Were  this  all,  he  were  only  to  be  ranked 
among  the  lowest  order  of  the  potentates  of  mind,  — 
the  negative  or  destructive  philosophers ;  those  who 
can  perceive  what  is  false,  but  not  what  is  true ;  who 
awaken  the  human  mind  to  the  inconsistencies  and 
absurdities  of  time-sanctioned  opinions  and  institutions, 
but  substitute  nothing  in  the  place  of  what  they  take 
away.  We  have  no  desire  to  undervalue  the  services 
of  such  persons  :  mankind  have  been  deeply  indebted 
to  them  ;  nor  will  there  ever  be  a  lack  of  work  for  them 
in  a  world  in  which  so  many  false  things  are  believed, 
in  which  so  many  which  have  been  true  are  believed 
long  after  they  have  ceased  to  be  true.  The  qualities,  ^\ 
however,  which  fit  men  for  perceiving  anomalies,  without 
perceiving  the  truths  which  would  rectify  them,  are  not  ^ 
among  the  rarest  of  endowments.  Courage,  verbal 
acuteness,  command  over  the  forms  of  argumentation, 
and  a  popular  style,  will  make  out  of  the  shallowest 
man,  with  a  sufficient  lack  of  reverence,  a  considerable 
negative  philosopher.  Such  men  have  never  been  want- 
ing in  periods  of  culture ;  and  the  period  in  which 
Bentham  formed  his  early  impressions  was  emphatically 
their  reign,  in  proportion  to  its  barrenness  in  the  more 
noble  products  of  the  human  mind.  An  age  of  formal- 
ism in  the  Church,  and  corruption  in  the  State,  when 
the  most  valuable  part  of  the  meaning  of  traditional 
doctrines  had  faded  from  the  minds  even  of  those  who 


360  BENTHAM. 

retained  from  habit  a  mechanical  belief  in  them,  was 
the  time  to  raise  up  all  kinds  of  sceptical  philosophy. 
Accordingly,  France  had  Voltaire,  and  his  school  of 
negative  thinkers  ;  and  England  (or  rather  Scotland) 
had  the  profoundest  negative  thinker  on  record,  —  David 
Hume ;  a  man,  the  peculiarities  of  whose  mind  quali- 
fied him  to  detect  failure  of  proof,  and  want  of  logical 
consistency,  at  a  depth  which  French  sceptics,  with 
their  comparatively  feeble  powers  of  analysis  and  abstrac- 
tion, stopped  far  short  of,  and  which  German  subtlety 
alone  could  thoroughly  appreciate,  or  hope  to  rival. 

If  Bentham  had  merely  continued  the  work  of  Hume, 
he  would  scarcely  have  been  heard  of  in  philosophy ; 
for  he  was  far  inferior  to  Hume  in  Hume's  qualities, 
and  was  in  no  respect  fitted  to  excel  as  a  metaphysician. 
We  must  not  look  for  subtlety,  or  the  power  of  recon- 
dite analysis,  among  his  intellectual  characteristics.  In 
the  former  quality,  few  great  thinkers  have  ever  been 
so  deficient ;  and  to  find  the  latter,  in  any  considerable 
measure,  in  a  mind  acknowledging  any  kindred  with 
his,  we  must  have  recourse  to  the  late  Mr.  Mill,  —  a 
man  who  united  the  great  qualities  of  the  metaphysi- 
cians of  the  eighteenth  century  with  others  of  a  diflfer- 
ent  complexion,  admirably  qualifying  him  to  complete 
and  correct  their  work.  Bentham  had  not  these  pecu- 
liar gifts  :  but  he  possessed  others,  not  inferior,  wliich 
were  not  possessed  by  any  of  his  precursors  ;  which  have 
made  him  a  source  of  light  to  a  generation  which  has 
far  outgrown  their  influence,  and,  as  we  called  him, 
the  chief  subversive  thinker  of  an  age  which  has  long 
lost  all  that  they  could  subvert. 

To  speak  of  him  first  as  a  merely  negative  philoso- 


BENTHAM.  361 

pher,  —  as  one  who  refutes  illogical  arguments,  ex- 
poses sophistry,  detects  contradiction  and  absurdity : 
even  in  that  capacity,  there  was  a  wide  field  left  vacant 
for  him  by  Hume,  and  which  he  has  occupied  to  an  un- 
precedented extent,  —  the  field  of  practical  abuses.  This 
was  Bentham's  peculiar  province,  —  to  this  he  was  called 
by  the  whole  bent  of  his  disposition, — to  carry  the 
warfare  against  absurdity  into  things  practical.  His 
was  an  essentially  practical  mind.  It  was  by  practical 
abuses  that  his  mind  was  first  turned  to  speculation,  — 
by  the  abuses  of  the  profession  which  was  chosen  for 
him, — that  of  the  law.  He  has  himself  stated  what 
pai'ticular  abuse  first  gave  that  shock  to  his  mind,  the 
recoil  of  which  has  made  the  whole  mountain  of  abuse 
totter :  it  was  the  custom  of  making  the  client  pay  for 
three  attendances  in  the  office  of  a  Master  in  Chancery, 
when  only  one  was  given.  The  law,  he  found  on  ex- 
amination, was  full  of  such  things.  But  were  these 
discoveries  of  his  ?  No  :  they  were  known  to  every 
lawyer  who  practised,  to  every  judge  who  sat  on  the 
bench ;  and  neither  before  nor  for  long  after  did  they 
cause  any  apparent  uneasiness  to  the  consciences  of 
these  learned  persons,  nor  hinder  them  from  asserting, 
whenever  occasion  offered,  in  books,  in  parliament,  or 
on  the  bench,  that  the  law  was  the  perfection  of  reason. 
During  so  many  generations,  in  each  of  which  thou- 
sands of  well-educated  young  men  were  successively 
placed  in  Bentham's  position  and  with  Bentham's  oppor- 
tunities, he  alone  was  found  with  suflScient  moral  sen- 
sibility and  self-reliance  to  say  to  himself,  that  these 
things,  however  profitable  they  might  be,  were  frauds,  ■ 
and  that  between  them  and  himself  there  should  be  a  ) 


362  BENTHAM. 

gulf  fixed.  To  this  rare  union  of  self-reliance  and 
moral  sensibility  we  are  indebted  for  all  that  Bentham 
has  done.  Sent  to  Oxford  by  his  father  at  the  unusual- 
ly early  age  of  fifteen ;  required,  on  admission,  to 
declare  his  belief  in  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  —  he  felt 
it  necessary  to  examine  them  ;  and  the  examination  sug- 
gested scruples,  which  he  sought  to  get  removed,  but, 
instead  of  the  satisfaction  he  expected,  was  told  that  it 
was  not  for  boys  like  him  to  set  up  their  judgment 
against  the  great  men  of  the  Church.  After  a  struggle, 
he  signed ;  but  the  impression  that  he  had  done  an  im- 
moral act  never  left  him  :  he  considered  himself  to  have 
committed  a  falsehood ;  and  throughout  life  he  never 
relaxed  in  his  indignant  denunciations  of  all  laws  which 
command  such  falsehoods,  all  institutions  which  attach 
rewards  to  them. 

By  thus  carrying  the  war  of  criticism  and  refutation, 
the  conflict  with  falsehood  and  absurdity,  into  the  field 
of  practical  evils,  Bentham,  even  if  he  had  done  nothing 
else,  would  have  earned  an  important  place  in  the 
history  of  intellect.  He  carried  on  the  warfare  without 
intermission.  To  this,  not  only  many  of  his  most 
piquant  chapters,  but  some  of  the  most  finished  of  his 
entire  works,  are  entirely  devoted,  —  the  "Defence  of 
Usury  ;  "  the  "  Book  of 'Fallacies  ;  "  and  the  onslaught 
upon  Blackstone,  published  anonymously  under  the  title 
of  "A  Fragment  on  Government,''  which,  though  a 
first  production,  and  of  a  writer  afterwards  so  much 
ridiculed  for  his  style,  excited  the  highest  admiration  no 
less  for  its  composition  than  for  its  thoughts,  and  was 
attributed  by  turns  to  Lord  Mansfield,  to  Lord  Cam- 
den, and   (by  Dr.  Johnson)   to  Dunning,  one  of  the 


BENTHAM.  363 

greatest  masters  of  style  among  the  lawyers  of  his  day. 
These  writings  are  altogether  original :  though  of  the 
negative  school,  they  resemble  nothing  previously  pro- 
duced by  negative  philosophers  ;  and  would  have  sufficed 
to  create  for  Bentham,  among  the  subversive  thinkers 
of  modern  Europe,  a  place  peculiarly  his  own.  But  it 
is  not  these  writings  that  constitute  the  real  distinction 
between  him  and  them.  There  was  a  deeper  difference. 
It  was  that  they  were  purely  negative  thinkers  :  he  was 
positive.  They  only  assailed  error  :  he  made  it  a  point 
of  conscience  not  to  do  so  until  he  thought  he  could 
plant  instead  the  corresponding  truth.  Their  character 
was  exclusively  analytic  :  his  was  synthetic.  They  took 
for  their  starting-point  the  received  opinion  on  any 
subject,  dug  round  it  with  their  logical  implements, 
pronounced  its  foundations  defective,  and  condemned  it : 
he  began  de  novo,  laid  his  own  foundations  deeply  and 
firmly,  built  up  his  own  structure,  and  bade  mankind 
compare  the  two.  It  was  when  he  had  solved  the 
problem  himself,  or  thought  he  had  done  so,  that  he 
declared  all  other  solutions  to  be  erroneous.  Hence, 
what  they  produced  will  not  last ;  it  must  perish,  much 
of  it  has  already  perished,  with  the  errors  which  it 
exploded  :  what  he  did  has  its  own  value,  by  which 
it  must  outlast  all  errors  to  which  it  is  opposed. 
Though  we  may  reject,  as  we  often  must,  his  practical 
conclusions,  yet  his  premises,  the  collections  of  facts 
and  observations  from  which  his  conclusions  were 
drawn,  remain  for  ever,  a  part  of  the  materials  of 
philosophy. 

A  place,  therefore,   must  be  assigned  to  Bentham 
among  the  masters  of  wisdom,  the  great  teachers  and 


364  BENTHAM. 

permanent  intellectual  ornaments  of  the  human  race. 
He  is  amonjr  those  who  have  enriched  mankind  with 
imperishable  gifts ;  and  although  these  do  not  tran- 
scend all  other  gifts,  nor  entitle  him  to  those  honors, 
"above  all  Greek,  above  all  Roman  fame,"  which,  by  a 
natural  re-action  agauiBt  the  neglect  and  contempt  of 
the  world,  many  of  his  admirers  were  once  disposed  to 
accumulate  upon  him,  yet  to  refuse  an  admiring  recog- 
nition of  what  he  was,  on  account  of  what  he  was  not, 
is  a  much  worse  error,  and  one  which,  pardonable  in 
the  vulgar,  is  no  longer  permitted  to  any  cultivated  and 
instructed  mind. 

If  we  were  asked  to  say,  in  the  fewest  possible  words, 
what  we  conceive  to  be  Bentham's  place  among  these 
great  intellectual  benefactors  of  humanity ;  what  he 
was,  and  what  he  was  not ;  what  kind  of  service  he  did 
and  did  not  render  to  truth,  —  we  should  say,  he  was 
not  a  great  philosopher ;  but  he  was  a  great  reformer 
in  philosophy.  He  brought  into  philosophy  something 
which  it  greatly  needed,  and  for  want  of  which  it  was 
at  a  stand.  It  was  not  his  doctrines  which  did  this  :  it 
was  his  mode  of  arriving  at  them.  He  introduced  into 
morals  and  politics  those  habits  of  thought,  and  modes 
of  investigation,  which  are  essential  to  the  idea  of  sci- 
ence, and  the  absence  of  which  made  those  depart- 
ments of  inquiry,  as  physics  had  been  before  Bacon,  a 
field  of  interminable  discussion,  leading  to  no  result. 
It  was  not  his  opinions,  in  short,  but  his  method,  that 
constituted  the  novelty  and  the  value  of  what  he  did,  — 
a  value  beyond  all  price,  even  though  we  should  reject 
the  whole,  as  we  unquestionably  must  a  large  part,  of 
the  opinions  themselves. 


BENTHAM.  3()5 

Bentliam's  method  may  be  shortly  described  as  the 
method  of  detail ;  of  treating  wholes  by  separating  them 
into  their  parts ;  abstractions,  by  resolving  them  into 
things  ;  classes  and  generalities,  by  distinguishing  them 
into  the  individuals  of  which  they  are  made  up ;  and 
breaking  every  question  into  pieces  before  attempting 
to  solve  it.  The  precise  amount  of  originality  of  this 
process,  considered  as  a  logical  conception,  — its  degree 
of  connection  with  the  methods  of  physical  science,  or 
with  the  previous  labors  of  Bacon,  Hobbes,  or  Locke,  — 
is  not  an  essential  consideration  in  this  place.  What- 
ever originality  there  was  in  the  method,  in  the  subjects 
he  applied  it  to,  and  in  the  rigidity  with  which  he 
adhered  to  it,  there  was  the  greatest.  Hence  his  inter- 
minable classifications ;  hence  his  elaborate  demonstra- 
tions of  the  most  acknowledged  truths.  That  murder, 
incendiarism,  robbery,  are  mischievous  actions,  he  will 
not  take  for  granted,  without  proof.  Let  the  thing  ap- 
pear ever  so  self-evident,  he  will  know  the  why  and  the 
how  of  it  with  the  last  degree  of  precision ;  he  will  dis- 
tinofuish  all  the  different  mischiefs  of  a  crime,  whether 
of  the  first,  the  second,  or  the  third  order ;  namely, 
1.  The  evil  to  the  sufferer,  and  to  his  personal  connec- 
tions ;  2.  The  danger  from  example,  and  the  alarm  or 
painful  feeling  of  insecurity;  and,  3.  The  discourage- 
ment to  industry  and  useful  pursuits  arising  from  the 
alarm,  and  the  trouble  and  resources  which  must  be 
expended  in  warding  off  the  danger.  After  this  enu- 
meration, he  will  prove,  from  the  laws  of  human  feeling, 
that  even  the  first  of  these  evils,  the  sufferings  of  the 
immediate  victim,  will,  on  the  average,  greatly  out- 
weigh the  pleasure  reaped  by  the  offender ;  nmch  more 


366  BENTHAM. 

when  all  the  other  evils  are  taken  into  account.  Unless 
this  could  be  proved,  he  would  account  the  infliction  of 
punishment  unwarrantable  ;  and,  for  taking  the  trouble 
to  prove  it  formally,  his  defence  is,  "There  are  truths 
which  it  is  necessary  to  prove,  not  for  their  own  sakes, 
because  they  are  acknowledged,  but  that  an  opening 
may  be  made  for  the  reception  of  other  truths  which 
depend  upon  them.  It  is  in  this  manner  we  provide  for 
the  reception  of  first  principles,  which,  once  received, 
prepare  the  way  for  admission  of  all  other  truths."  * 
To  which  may  be  added,  that  in  this  manner  also  do  we 
discipline  the  mind  for  practising  the  same  sort  of  dis- 
section upon  questions  more  complicated  and  of  more 
doubtful  issue. 

It  is  a  sound  maxim,  and  one  which  all  close  think- 
ers have  felt,  but  which  no  one  before  Bentham  ever  so 
consistently  applied,  that  error  lurks  in  generalities ; 
that  the  human  mind  is  not  capable  of  embracing  a 
complex  whole,  until  it  has  surveyed  and  catalogued  the 
parts  of  which  that  whole  is  made  up  ;  that  abstractions 
are  not  realities  per  se,  but  an  abridged  mode  of  ex- 
pressing facts ;  and  that  the  only  practical  mode  of 
.dealing  with  them  is  to  trace  them  back  to  the  facts 
(whether  of  experience  or  of  consciousness)  of  which 
they  are  the  expression.  Proceeding  on  this  principle, 
Bentham  makes  short  work  with  the  ordinary  modes  of 
moral  and  political  reasoning.  These,  it  appeared  to 
him,  when  hunted  to  their  source,  for  the  most  part 
terminated  in  phrases.  In  politics,  liberty,  social  order, 
constitution,  law  of  nature,  social  compact,  &c.,  were 
the  catchwords :  ethics  had  its  analogous  ones.     Such 

*  Part  I.,  pp.  161-2,  of  the  collected  edition. 


BENTHAM.  367 

were  the  ai'guments  on  which  the  gravest  questions  of 
morality  and  policy  were  made  to  turn ;  not  reasons, 
but  allusions  to  reasons ;  sacramental  expressions,  by 
which  a  summary  appeal  was  made  to  some  general 
sentiment  of  mankind,  or  to  some  maxim  in  familiar 
use,  which  might  be  true  or  not,  but  the  limitations  of 
which  no  one  had  ever  critically  examined.  And  this 
satisfied  other  people,  but  not  Bentham.  He  required 
something  more  than  opinion  as  a  reason  for  opinion. 
Whenever  he  found  a  phrase  used  as  an  argument  for 
or  against  any  thing,  he  insisted  upon  knowing  what  it 
meant ;  whether  it  appealed  to  any  standard,  or  gave 
intimation  of  any  matter  of  fact  relevant  to  the  ques- 
tion ;  and,  if  he  could  not  find  that  it  did  either,  he 
treated  it  as  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  disputant  to 
impose  his  own  individual  sentiment  on  other  people, 
without  giving  them  a  reason  for  it,  —  a  "contrivance 
for  avoiding  the  obligation  of  appealing  to  any  external 
standard,  and  for  prevailing  upon  the  reader  to  accept 
of  the  author's  sentiment  and  opinion  as  a  reason,  and 
that  a  sufficient  one,  for  itself."  Bentham  shall  speak 
for  himself  on  this  subject.  The  passage  is  from  his 
first  systematic  work,  "  Introduction  to  the  Principles  of 
Morals  and  Legislation  ;  "  and  we  could  scarcely  quote 
any  thing  more  strongly  exemplifying  both  the  strength 
and  weakness  of  his  mode  of  philosophizing :  — 

"  It  is  curious  enough  to  observe  the  variety  of  inventions 
men  have  hit  upon,  and  the  variety  of  phrases  they  have 
brought  forward,  in  order  to  conceal  from  the  world,  and,  if 
possible,  from  themselves,  this  very  general,  and  thei-efore  very 
pardonable,  self-sufficiency. 

'•  1.  One  man  says  he  has  a  thing  made  on  purpose  to  tell 


368  BENTHAM. 

him  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong ;  and  that  is  called  a 
*  moral  sense : '  and  then  he  goes  to  work  at  his  ease,  and  says 
such  a  thing  is  right,  and  such  a  thing  is  wrong.  Why? 
'  Because  my  moral  sense  tells  me  it  is.' 

"  2.  Another  man  comes,  and  alters  the  phrase  ;  leaving 
out  moral,  and  putting  in  common  in  the  room  of  it.  He  then 
tells  you  that  his  common  sense  tells  him  what  is  right  and 
wrong  as  surely  as  the  other's  moral  sense  did :  meaning,  by 
common  sense,  a  sense  of  some  kind  or  other,  which,  he  says, 
is  possessed  by  all  mankind :  the  sense  of  those  whose  sense 
is  not  the  same  as  the  author's  being  struck  out,  as  not  worth 
taking.  This  contrivance  does  better  than  the  other ;  for,  a 
moral  sense  being  a  new  thing,  a  man  may  feel  about  him 
a  good  while  without  being  able  to  find  it  out :  but  common 
sense  is  as  old  as  the  creation ;  and  there  is  no  man  but  would 
be  ashamed  to  be  thought  not  to  have  as  much  of  it  as  his 
neighbors.  It  has  another  great  advantage  :  by  appearing  to 
share  power,  it  lessens  envy ;  for,  when  a  man  gets  up  upon 
this  ground  in  order  to  anathematize  those  who  differ  from 
him,  it  is  not  by  a  sic  volo  sic  juheo,  but  by  a  velitis  juheatis. 

"  3.  Another  man  comes,  and  says,  that  as  to  a  moral  sense 
indeed,  he  cannot  find  that  he  has  any  such  thing ;  that,  how- 
ever, he  has  an  understanding,  which  will  do  quite  as  well. 
This  understanding,  he  says,  is  the  standard  of  right  and 
wrong :  it  tells  him  so  and  so.  All  good  and  wise  men  under- 
stand as  he  does :  if  other  men's  understandings  differ  in  any 
part  from  his,  so  much  the  worse  for  them :  it  is  a  sure  sign 
they  are  either  defective  or  corrupt. 

"  4.  Another  man  says  that  there  is  an  eternal  and  immuta- 
ble rule  of  right;  that  that  rule  of  right  dictates  so  and  so :  aud 
then  he  begins  giving  you  his  sentiments  upon  any  thing  that 
comes  uppermost ;  and  these  sentiments  (you  are  to  take  for 
granted)  are  so  many  branches  of  the  eternal  rule  of  right. 

"  5.  Another  man,  or  perhaps  the  same  man  (it  is  no  mat- 
ter), says  that  there  are  certain  practices  conformable,  and 


BENTHAM.  369 

others  repugnant,  to  the  fitness  of  things :  and  then  he  tells 
you,  at  his  leisure,  what  practices  are  conformable,  and  what 
repugnant ;  just  as  he  happens  to  like  a  practice  or  dislike  it. 

"  6.  A  great  multitude  of  people  are  continually  talking  of 
the  law  of  nature ;  and  then  they  go  on  giving  you  their 
sentiments  about  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong :  and  these 
sentiments,  you  are  to  understand,  are  so  many  chapters  and 
sections  of  the  law  of  nature. 

"  7.  Instead  of  the  phrase,  law  of  nature,  you  have  some- 
times law  of  reason,  right  reason,  natural  justice,  natural 
equity,  good  order.  Any  of  them  will  do  equally  well.  This 
latter  is  most  used  in  politics.  The  three  last  are  much  more 
tolerable  than  the  others,  because  they  do  not  very  explicitly 
claim  to  be  any  thing  more  than  phrases  :  they  insist  but  feebly 
upon  the  being  looked  upon  as  so  many  positive  standards  of 
themselves,  and  seem  content  to  be  taken,  upon  occasion,  for 
phrases  expressive  of  the  conformity  of  the  thing  in  question 
to  the  proper  standard,  whatever  that  may  be.  On  most 
occasions,  however,  it  will  be  better  to  say  utility:  utility  is 
clearer,  as  referring  more  explicitly  to  pain  and  pleasure. 

"  8.  We  have  one  philosopher,  who  says  there  is  no  harm 
in  any  thing  in  the  world  but  in  telling  a  lie ;  and  that,  if,  for 
example,  you  were  to  murder  your  own  father,  this  would 
i)nly  be  a  particular  way  of  saying  he  was  not  your  father. 
Of  course,  when  this  philosopher  sees  any  thing  that  he  does 
not  like,  he  says  it  is  a  particular  way  of  telling  a  lie.  It  is 
saying  that  the  act  ought  to  be  done,  or  may  be  done,  when, 
in  truth,  it  ought  not  be  done. 

"  9.  The  fairest  and  openest  of  them  all  is  that  sort  of  man 
who  speaks  out,  and  says,  I  am  of  the  number  of  the  elect : 
now  God  himself  takes  care  to  inform  the  elect  what  is  right ; 
and  that  with  so  good  effect,  that,  let  them  strive  ever  so,  they 
cannot  help  not  only  knowing  it,  but  practising  it.  If,  there- 
fore, a  man  wants  to  know  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong,  he 
has  nothing  to  do  but  to  come  to  me." 
VOL.  I.  24 


370  BENTHAM. 

Few  will  contend  that  this  is  a  perfectly  fair  repre- 
sentation of  the  animus  of  those  who  employ  the  vari 
ous  phrases  so  amusingly  animadverted  on ;  but  that 
the  phrases  contain  no  argument,  save  what  is  grounded 
on  the  very  feelings  they  are  adduced  to  justify,  is  a 
truth  which  Bentham  had  the  eminent  merit  of  first 
pointing  out. 

It  is  the  introduction  into  the  philosophy  of  human 
conduct  of  this  method  of  detail,  —  of  this  practice  of 
never  reasoning  about  wholes  till  they  have  been  re- 
solved into  their  parts,  nor  about  abstractions  till  they 
have  been  translated  into  realities,  —  that  constitutes  the 
originality  of  Bentham  in  philosophy,  and  makes  him 
the  great  reformer  of  the  moral  and  political  branch  of 
it.  To  what  he  terms  the  "  exhaustive  method  of  clas- 
sification," which  is  but  one  branch  of  this  more  gene- 
ral method,  he  himself  ascribes  every  thing  original  in 
the  systematic  and  elaborate  work  from  which  we  have 
quoted.  The  generalities  of  his  philosophy  itself  have 
little  or  no  novelty  :  to  ascribe  any  to  the  doctrine, 
that  general  utility  is  the  foundation  of  morality,  would 
imply  great  ignorance  of  the  history  of  philosophy, 
of  general  literature,  and  of  Bentham's  own  writings. 
He  derived  the  idea,  as  he  says  himself,  from  Helve- 
tius ;  and  it  was  the  doctrine  no  less  of  the  religious 
philosophers  of  that  age,  prior  to  Reid  and  Beattie. 
We  never  saw  an  abler  defence  of  the  doctrine  of  utility 
than  in  a  book  written  in  refutation  of  Shaftesbury,  and 
now  little  read,  —  Brown's*  "Essays  on  the  Character- 
istics ; "  and,  in  Johnson's  celebrated  review  of  Soame 

*  Author  of  another  book,  which  made  no  little  sensation  when  it  first 
appeared,  —  "An  Estimate  of  the  Manners  of  the  Times." 


BENTHAM.  371 

Jenyns,  the  same  doctrine  is  set  forth  as  that  both  of 
the  author  and  of  the  reviewer.  In  all  ages  of  philoso- 
phy, one  of  its  schools  has  been  utilitarian,  not  only 
from  the  time  of  Epicurus,  but  long  before.  It  was 
by  mere  accident  that  this  opinion  became  connected  in 
Bentham  "Hvith^  his  peculiar  method.  The  utilitarian 
philosophers  antecedent  to  him  had  no  more  claims  to 
the  method  than  their  antagonists.  To  refer,  for  in- 
stance, to  the  Epicurean  philosophy,  according  to  the 
most  complete  view  we  have  of  the  moral  part  of  it 
by  the  most  accomplished  scholar  of  antiquity,  Cicero  : 
we  ask  any  one  who  has  read  his  philosophical  writings, 
the  "  De  Finibus  "  for  instance,  whether  the  arguments 
of  the  Epicureans  do  not,  just  as  much  as  those  of  the 
Stoics  or  Platonists,  consist  of  mere  rhetorical  appeals 
to  common  notions,  to  iixdra  and  avfieia  instead  of  reKftT/pia, 
notions  picked  up,  as  it  were,  casually,  and,  when  true 
at  all,  never  so  narrowly  looked  into  as  to  ascertain  in 
what  sense,  and  under  what  limitations,  they  are  true. 
The  application  of  a  real  inductive  philosophy  to  the 
problems  of  ethics  is  as  unknown  to  the  Epicurean 
moralists  as  to  any  of  the  other  schools  :  they  never 
take  a  question  to  pieces,  and  join  issue  on  a  definite 
point.  Bentham  certainly  did  not  learn  his  sifting  and 
anatomizing  method  from  them. 

This  method  Bentham  has  finally  installed  in  philos- 
ophy ;  has  made  it,  henceforth,  imperative  on  philoso- 
phers of  all  schools.  By  it  he  has  formed  the  intel- 
lects of  many  thinkers,  who  either  never  adopted,  or 
have  abandoned,  many  of  his  peculiar  opinions.  He 
has  taught  the  method  to  men  of  the  most  opposite 
schools  to  his ;    he  has  made  them  perceive,  that,  if 


372  BENTHAM. 

they  do  not  test  their  doctrines  by  the  method  of  detail, 
their  adversaries  will.  He  has  thus,  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say,  for  the  first  time,  introduced  precision  of 
thought  into  moral  and  political  philosophy.  Instead 
of  taking  up  their  opinions  by  intuition,  or  by  ratioci- 
nation from  premises  adopted  on  a  mere  rough  view, 
and  couched  in  language  so  vague  that  it  is  impossible 
to  say  exactly  whether  they  are  true  or  false,  philoso- 
phers are  now  forced  to  understand  one  another,  to 
break  down  the  generality  of  their  propositions,  and 
join  a  precise  issue  in  every  dispute.  This  is  nothing 
less  than  a  revolution  in  philosophy.  Its  effect  is 
gradually  becoming  evident  in  the  writings  of  English 
thinkers  of  every  variety  of  opinion,  and  will  be  felt 
more  and  more  in  proportion  as  Bentham's  writings  are 
diffused,  and  as  the  number  of  minds  to  whose  forma- 
tion they  contribute  is  multiplied. 

It  will  naturally  be  presumed,  that,  of  the  fruits  of 
this  great  philosophical  improvement,  some  portion  at 
least  will  have  been  reaped  by  its  author.  Armed  with 
such  a  potent  instrument,  and  wielding  it  with  such 
singleness  of  aim ;  cultivating  the  field  of  practical 
philosophy  with  such  unwearied  and  such  consistent  use 
of  a  method  right  in  itself,  and  not  adopted  by  his 
predecessors,  — it  cannot  be  but  that  Bentham  by  his  own 
inquiries  must  have  accomplished  something  considera- 
ble. And  so,  it  will  be  found,  he  has ;  something  not 
only  considerable,  but  extraordinary ;  though  but  little 
compared  with  what  he  has  left  undone,  and  far  short 
of  what  his  sanguine  and  almost  boyish  fancy  made 
him   flatter  himself  that  he    had    accomplished ji      His 


BENTHAM.  373 

peculiar  method,  admirably  calculated  to  hiake  clear 
thinkers,  and  sure  ones  to  the  extent  of  their  materials, 
has  not  equal  efficacy  for  making  those  materials  com- 
plete. It  is  a  security  for  accuracy,  but  not  for  compre- 
hensiveness ;  or,  rather,  it  is  a  security  for  one  sort  of 
comprehensiveness,  but  not  for  another. 

Bentham's  method  of  laying  out  his  subject  is  ad- 
mirable as  a  preservative  against  one  kind  of  narrow 
and  partial  views.  H^  begins  by  placing  before  him- 
self the  whole  of  the  field  of  inquiry  to  which  the 
particular  question  belongs,  and  divides  down  till  he 
arrives  at  the  thing  he  is  in  search  of;  and  thus,  by 
successively  rejecting  all  which  is  not  the  thing,  he 
gradually  works  out  a  definition  of  what  it  is.  This, 
which  he  calls  the  exhaustive  method,  is  as  old  as 
philosophy  itself.  Plato  owes  every  thing  to  it,  and 
does  every  thing  by  it ;  and  the  use  made  of  it  by  that 
great  man  in  his  Dialogues,  Bacon,  in  one  of  those 
pregnant  logical  hints  scattered  through  his  writings, 
and  so  much  neglected  by  most  of  his  pretended  fol- 
lowers, pronounces  to  be  the  nearest  approach  to  a  true 
inductive  method  in  the  ancient  philosophy.  Bentham 
was  probably  not  aware  that  Plato  had  anticipated  him 
in  the  process  to  which  he,  too,  declared  that  he  owed 
every  thing.  By  the  practice  of  it,  his  speculations  are 
rendered  eminently  systematic  and  consistent :  no  ques- 
tion, with  him,  is  ever  an  insulated  one ;  he  sees  every 
subject  in  connection  with  all  the  other  subjects  with 
which  in  his  view  it  is  related,  and  from  which  it  re- 
quires to  be  distinguished ;  and  as  all  that  he  knows, 
in  the  least  degree  allied  to  the  subject,  has  been  mar- 
shalled in  an  orderly  manner  before  him,  he  does  not, 


374  BENTHAM. 

like  people  who  use  a  looser  method,  forget  and  over- 
look a  thing  on  one  occasion  to  remember  it  on  another. 
Hence  there  is  probably  no  philosopher,  of  so  wide  a 
range,  in  whom  there  are  so  few  inconsistencies.  If 
any  of  the  truths  which  he  did  not  see  had  come  to  be 
seea  by  him,  he  would  have  remembered  it  everywhere 
and  at  all  times,  and  would  have  adjusted  his  whole 
system  to  it.  And  this  is  another  admirable  quality 
which  he  has  impressed  upon  the  best  of  the  minds 
trained  in  his  habits  of  thought :  when  those  minds 
open  to  admit  new  truths,  they  digest  them  as  fast  as 
they  receive  them. 

But  this  system,  excellent  for  keeping  before  the 
mind  of  the  thinker  all  that  he  knows,  does  not  make 
him  know  enough ;  it  does  not  make  a  knowledge  of 
some  of  the  properties  of  a  thing  suffice  for  the  whole 
of  it,  nor  render  a  rooted  habit  of  surveying  a  complex 
object  (though  ever  so  carefully)  in  only  one  of  its 
aspects  tantamount  to  the  power  of  contemplating  it 
in  all.  To  give  this  last  power,  other  qualities  are 
required  :  whether  Bentham  possessed  those  other  qual- 
ities we  now  have  to  see. 

Bentham's  mind,  as  we  have  already  said,  was  emi- 
nently synthetical.  He  begins  all  his  inquiries  by 
supposing  nothing  to  be  known  on  the  subject ;  and  re- 
constructs all  philosophy  ab  initio,  without  reference  to 
the  opinions  of  his  predecessors.  But  to  build  either  a 
philosophy,  or  any  thing  else,  there  must  be  materials. 
For  the  philosophy  of  matter,  the  materials  are  the 
properties  of  matter ;  for  moral  and  political  philoso- 
phy, the  properties  of  man,  and  of  man's  position  in 
the  world.     The  knowledge  which  any  inquirer  possesses 


BENTHAM.  375 

of  these  properties  constitutes  a  limit,  beyond  which, 
as  a  moralist  or  a  political  philosopher,  whatever  be  his 
powers  of  mind,  he  cannot  reach.  Nobody's  synthesis 
can  be  more  complete  than  his  analysis.  If,  in  his  sur- 
vey of  human  nature  and  life,  he  has  left  any  element 
out,  then,  wheresoever  that  element  exerts  any  influ- 
ence, his  conclusions  will  fail,  more  or  less,  in  their 
application.  If  he  has  left  out  many  elements,  and 
those  very  important,  his  labors  may  be  highly  valuable  : 
he  may  have  largely  contributed  to  that  body  of  partial 
truths,  which,  when  completed  and  corrected  by  one 
another,  constitute  practical  truth ;  but  the  applicability 
of  his  system  to  practice  in  its  own  proper  shape  will 
be  of  an  exceedingly  limited  range. 

Human  nature  and  human  life  are  wide  subjects  ;  and 
whoever  would  embark  in  an  enterprise  requiring  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  them  has  need  both  of  large 
stores  of  his  own,  and  of  all  aids  and  appliances  from 
elsewhere.  His  qualifications  for  success  will  be  pro- 
portional to  two  things,  —  the  degree  in  which  his  own 
nature  and  circumstances  furnish  him  with  a  correct  and 
complete  picture  of  man's  nature  and  circumstances, 
and  his  capacity  of  deriving  light  from  other  minds. 

Bentham  failed  in  derivino;  light  from  other  minds. 
His  writinors  contain  few  traces  of  the  accurate  knowl- 
edge  of  any  schools  of  thinking  but  his  own ;  and 
many  proofs  of  his  entire  conviction,  that  they  could 
teach  him  nothing  worth  knowing.  For  some  of  the 
most  illustrious  of  previous  thinkers,  his  contempt  was 
unmeasured.  In  almost  the  only  passage  of  the  "  De- 
ontology," which  from  its  style,  and  from  its  having 
before  appeared  in  print,  may  be  known  to  be  Ben- 


376  BENTHAM. 

tham's,  Socrates  and  Plato  are  spoken  of  in  terms 
distressing  to  his  greatest  admirers  ;  and  the  incapacity 
to  appreciate  such  men  is  a  fact  perfectly  in  unison 
with  the  general  habits  of  Bentham's  mind.  He  had 
a  phrase,  expressive  of  the  view  he  took  of  all  moral 
speculations  to  which  his  method  had  not  been  applied, 
or  (which  he  considered  as  the  same  thing)  not  founded 
on  a  recognition  of  utility  as  the  moral  standard :  this 
phrase  was  "vague  generalities."  Whatever  presented 
itself  to  him  in  such  a  shape,  he  dismissed  as  unworthy 
of  notice,  or  dwelt  upon  only  to  denounce  as  absurd. 
He  did  not  heed,  or  rather  the  nature  of  his  mind  pre- 
vented it  from  occurring  to  him,  that  these  generalities 
contained  the  whole  unanalyzed  experience  of  the  hu- 
man race. 

Unless  it  can  be  asserted  that  mankind  did  not  know 
any  thing  until  logicians  taught  it  to  them ;  that,  until 
the  last  hand  has  been  put  to  a  moral  truth  by  giving 
it  a  metaphysically  precise  expression,  all  the  previous 
rough-hewing  which  it  has  undergone  by  the  common 
intellect,  at  the  suggestion  of  common  wants  and  com- 
mon experience,  is  to  go  for  nothing, — it  must  be 
allowed,  that  even  the  originality  which  can,  and  the 
courage  which  dares,  think  for  itself,  is  not  a  more 
necessary  part  of  the  philosophical  character  than  a 
thoughtful  regard  for  previous  thinkers,  and  for  the 
collective  mind  of  the  human  race.  What  has  been 
the  opinion  of  mankind,  has  been  the  opinion  of  persons 
of  all  tempers  and  dispositions,  of  all  partialities  and 
prepossessions,  of  all  varieties  in  position,  in  educa- 
tion, in  opportunities  of  observation  and  inquiry.  No 
one  inquirer  is  all  this  :  every  inquirer  is  either  young 


BENTHAM.  377 

or  old,  rich  or  poor,  sickly  or  healthy,  married  or  un- 
married, meditative  or  active,  a  poet  or  a  logician,  an 
ancient  or  a  modern,  a  man  or  a  woman ;  and,  if  a 
thinking  person,  has,  in  addition,  the  accidental  pecu- 
liarities of  his  individual  modes  of  thought.  Every 
circumstance  which  gives  a  character  to  the  life  of  a 
human  being  cairies  with  it  its  peculiar  biasses,  —  its 
peculiar  facilities  for  perceiving  some  things,  and  for 
missing  or  forgetting  others.  But,  from  points  of  view 
different  from  his,  different  things  are  perceptible ;  and 
none  are  more  likely  to  have  seen  what  he  does  not  see 
than  those  who  do  not  see  what  he  sees.  The  general 
opinion  of  mankind  is  the  average  of  the  conclusions 
of  all  minds,  stripped  indeed  of  their  choicest  and  most 
recondite  thoughts,  but  freed  from  their  twists  and 
partialities  ;  a  net  result,  in  which  everybody's  particu- 
lar point  of  view  is  represented,  nobody's  predominant. 
The  collective  mind  does  not  penetrate  below  the  sur- 
face, but  it  sees  all  the  surface  :  which  profound  think- 
ers, even  by  reason  of  their  profundity,  often  fail  to  do  ; 
their  intenser  view  of  a  thing  in  some  of  its  aspects 
diverting  their  attention  from  others. 

The  hardiest  assertor,  therefore,  of  the  freedom  of 
private  judgment ;  the  keenest  detector  of  the  errors 
of  his  predecessors,  and  of  the  inaccuracies  of  current 
modes  of  thought,  —  is  the  very  person  who  most  needs 
to  fortify  the  weak  side  of  his  own  intellect  by  study  of 
the  opinions  of  mankind  in  all  ages  and  nations,  and 
of  the  speculations  of  philosophers  of  the  modes  of 
thought  most  opposite  to  his  own.  It  is  there  that  he 
will  find  the  experiences  denied  to  himself  ;  the  remain- 
der of  the  truth  of  which  he  sees  but  half;  the  truths, 


378  BENTHAM. 

of  which  the  errors  he  detects  are  commonly  but  the 
exaggerations.  If,  like  Bentham,  he  brings  with  him 
an  improved  instrument  of  investigation,  the  gi-e^ter  is 
the  probability  that  he  will  find  ready  prepared  a  rich 
abundance  of  rough  ore,  which  was  merely  waiting  for 
that  instrument.  A  man  of  clear  ideas  errs  grievously 
if  he  imagines  that  whatever  is  seen  confusedly  does  not 
exist :  it  belongs  to  him,  when  he  meets  with  such  a 
thing,  to  dispel  the  mist,  and  fix  the  outlines  of  the 
vague  form  which  is  looming  through  it. 

Bentham's  contempt,  then,  of  all  other  schools  of 
thinkers  ;  his  determination  to  create  a  philosophy 
wholly  out  of  the  materials  furnished  by  his  own  mind, 
and  by  minds  like  his  own,  —  was  his  first  disqualification 
as  a  philosopher.  His  second  was  the  incompleteness 
of  his  own  mind  as  a  representative  of  universal  human 
nature.  In  many  of  the  most  natural  and  strongest 
feelings  of  human  nature  he  had  no  sympathy ;  from 
many  of  its  graver  experiences  he  was  altogether  cut 
off;  and  the  faculty  by  which  one  mind  understands  a 
mind  different  from  itself,  and  throws  itself  into  the 
feelings  of  that  other  mind,  was  denied  him  by  his  defi- 
ciency of  imagination. 

With  imagination  in  the  popular  sense,  command  of 
imagery  and  metaphorical  expression,  Bentham  was, 
to  a  certain  degree,  endowed.  For  want,  indeed,  of 
poetical  culture,  the  images  with  which  his  fancy  sup- 
plied him  were  seldom  beautiful ;  but  they  were  quaint 
and  humorous,  or  bold,  forcible,  and  intense  :  passages 
might  be  quoted  from  him,  both  of  playful  irony  and  of 
declamatory  eloquence,  seldom  surpassed  in  the  writings 
of  philosophers.     The  imagination,  which  he  had  not, 


BENTHAM.  379 

was  that  to  which  the  name  is  generally  appropriated  by 
the  best  writers  of  the  present  day ;  that  which  enables 
us,  by  a  voluntary  effort,  to  conceive  the  absent  as  if  it 
were  present,  the  imaginary  as  if  it  were  real,  and  to 
clothe  it  in  the  feelings,  which,  if  it  were  indeed  real, 
it  would  bring  along  with  it.  This  is  the  power  by 
which  one  human  being  enters  into  the  mind  and  cir- 
cumstances of  another.  This  power  constitutes  the 
poet,  in  so  far  as  he  does  any  thing  but  melodiously 
utter  his  own  actual  feelings.  It  constitutes  the  drama- 
tist entirely.  It  is  one  of  the  constituents  of  the  histo- 
rian :  by  it  we  understand  other  times  ;  by  it  Guizot 
interprets  to  us  the  middle  ages ;  Nisard,  in  his  beauti- 
ful Studies  on  the  later  Latin  poets,  places  us  in  the 
Rome  of  the  Caesars ;  Michelet  disengages  the  distinc- 
tive characters  of  the  different  races  and  generations  of 
mankind  from  the  facts  of  their  history.  Without  it, 
nobody  knows  even  his  own  nature,  further  than  cir- 
cumstances have  actually  tried  it,  and  called  it  out ;  nor 
the  nature  of  his  fellow-creatures,  beyond  such  general- 
izations as  he  may  have  been  enabled  to  make  from  his 
observation  of  their  outward  conduct. 

By  these  limits,  accordingly,  Bentham's  knowledge 
of  human  nature  is  bounded.  It  is  wholly  empirical, 
and  the  empiricism  of  one  who  has  had  little  experi- 
ence. He  had  neither  internal  experience  nor  external : 
the  quiet,  even  tenor  of  his  life,  and  his  healthiness  of 
mind,  conspired  to  exclude  him  from  both.  He  never 
knew  prosperity  and  adversity,  passion  nor  satiety :  he 
never  had  even  the  experiences  which  sickness  gives ; 
he  lived  from  childhood  to  the  age  of  eighty-five  in 
boyish  health.     He  kaew  no  dejection,  no  heaviness  of 


380  BENTHAM. 

heart.  He  never  felt  life  a  sore  and  a  weary  burthen. 
He  was  a  boy  to  the  last.  Self-consciousness,  that 
demon  of  the  men  of  genius  of  our  time,  from  Words- 
worth to  Byron,  from  Goethe  to  Chateaubriand,  and 
to  which  this  age  owes  so  much  both  of  its  cheerful 
and  its  mournful  wisdom,  never  was  awakened  in  him. 
How  much  of  human  nature  slumbered  in  him  he 
knew  not,  neither  can  we  know.  He  had  never  been 
made  alive  to  the  unseen  influences  which  were  acting: 
on  himself,  nor,  consequently,  on  his  fellow-creatures. 
Other  ages  and  other  nations  were  a  blank  to  him  for 
purposes  of  instruction.  He  measured  them  but  by 
one  standard,  —  their  knowledge  of  facts,  and  their 
capability  to  take  correct  views  of  utility,  and  merge  all 
other  objects  in  it.  His  own  lot  was  cast  in  a  genera- 
tion of  the  leanest  and  barrenest  men  whom  England 
had  yet  produced ;  and  he  was  an  old  man  when  a  bet- 
ter race  came  in  with  the  present  century.  He  saw 
accordingly,  in  man,  little  but  what  the  vulgarest  eye 
can  see ;  recognized  no  diversities  of  character  but  such 
as  he  who  runs  may  read.  Knowing  so  little  of  human 
feelings,  he  knew  still  less  of  the  influences  by  which 
those  feelings  are  formed  :  all  the  more  subtle  workings 
both  of  the  mind  upon  itself,  and  of  external  things 
upon  the  mind,  escaped  him ;  and  no  one,  probably, 
who,  in  a  highly  instructed  age,  ever  attempted  to  give 
a  rule  to  all  human  conduct,  set  out  with  a  more  limited 
conception  either  of  the  agencies  by  which  human  con- 
duct is,  or  of  those  by  which  it  should  be,  influenced. 

This,  then,  is  our  idea  of  Bentham.  He  was  a  man 
both  of  remarkable  endowments  for  philosophy,  and  of 
remarkable  deficiencies  for  it ;  fitted  beyond  almost  any 


BENTHAM.  381 

man  for  drawing  from  his  premises  conclusions  not  only 
correct,  but  sufficiently  precise  and  specific  to  be  prac- 
tical ;  but  whose  general  conception  of  human  nature 
and  life  furnished  him  with  an  unusually  slender  stock 
of  premises.  It  is  obvious  what  would  be  likely  to  be 
achieved  by  such  a  man ;  what  a  thinker,  thus  gifted 
and  tKus.  disqualified,  could  do  in  philosophy.  He 
could,  with  close  and  accurate  logic,  hunt  half-truths  to 
theu'  consequences  and  practical  applications,  on  a  scale 
both  of  greatness  and  of  minuteness  not  previously 
exemplified ;  and  tliis  is  the  character  which  posterity 
will  probably  assign  to  Bentham. 

We  express  our  sincere  and  well-considered  convic- 
tion when  we  say,  that  there  is  hardly  any  thing  posi- 
tive in  Bentham's  philosophy  which  is  not  true ;  that 
when  his  practical  conclusions  are  erroneous,  which,  in 
our  opinion,  they  are  very  often,  it  is  not  because  the 
considerations  which  he  urges  are  not  rational  and  valid 
in  themselves,  but  because  some  more  important  prin- 
ciple, which  he  did  not  perceive,  supersedes  those  con- 
siderations, and  turns  the  scale.  The  bad  part  of  his 
writings  is  his  resolute  denial  of  all  that  he  does  aot 
see,  of  all  truths  but  those  which  he  recognizes.  By 
that  alone  has  he  exercised  any  bad  influence  upon  his 
age ;  by  that  he  has  not  created  a  school  of  deniers,  for 
this  is  an  ignorant  prejudice,  but  put  himself  at  th% 
head  of  the  school  which  exists  always,  though  it  does 
not  always  find  a  great  man  to  give  it  the  sanction  of 
philosophy ;  thrown  the  mantle  of  intellect  over  the 
natural  tendency  of  men  in  all  ages  to  deny  or  disparage 
all  feelings  and  mental  states  of  which  they  have  no 
consciousness  in  themselves. 


382  BENTHAM. 

The  truths  which  are  not  Bentham's,  which  his  phi- 
losophy takes  no  account  of,  are  many  and  important ; 
but  his  non-recognition  of  them  does  not  put  them  out 
of  existence  :  they  are  still  with  us  ;  and  it  is  a  compar- 
atively easy  task  that  is  reserved  for  us,  —  to  harmonize 
those  truths  with  his.  To  reject  his  half  of  the  truth 
because  he  overlooked  the  other  half  would  be  to  fall 
into  his  error  without  having  his  excuse.  For  our  own 
part,  we  have  a  large  tolerance  for  one-eyed  men,  pro- 
vided their  one  eye  is  a  penetrating  one  :  if  they  saw 
more,  they  probably  would  not  see  so  keenly,  nor  so 
eagerly  pursue  one  course  of  inquiry.  Almost  all  rich 
veins  of  original  and  striking  speculation  have  been 
opened  by  systematic  half-thinkers  ;  though,  whether 
these  new  thoughts  drive  out  others  as  good,  or  are 
peacefully  superadded  to  them,  depends  on  whether 
these  half-thinkers  are  or  are  not  followed  in  the  same 
track  by  complete  thinkers.  The  field  of  man's  nature 
and  life  cannot  be  too  much  worked,  or  in  too  many 
directions ;  until  every  clod  is  turned  up,  the  work  is 
imperfect :  no  whole  truth  is  possible  but  by  combining 
the  points  of  view  of  all  the  fractional  truths,  nor,  there- 
fore, until  it  has  been  fully  seen  what  each  fractional 
truth  can  do  by  itself. 

What  Bentham's  fractional  truths  could  do  there  is  no 
such  good  means  of  showing  as  by  a  review  of  his  phi-- 
losophy ;  and  such  a  review,  though  inevitably  a  most 
brief  and  general  one,  it  is  now  necessary  to  attempt. 

The  first  question  in  regard  to  any  man  of  specula- 
tion is,  What  is  his  theory  of  human  life?  In  the  minds 
of  many  philosophers,  whatever  theory  they  have  of  this 


BENTHAM.  383 

sort  is  latent ;  and  it  would  be  a  revelation  to  themselves 
to  have  it  pointed  out  to  them  in  their  writings  as  others 
can  see  it,  unconsciously  moulding  every  thing  to  its 
own  likeness.  But  Bentham  always  knew  his  own 
premises,  and  made  his  reader  know  them  :  it  w^as  not 
his  custom  to  leave  the  theoretic  grounds  of  his  practical 
conclusions  to  conjecture.  Few  great  thinkers  have 
afforded  the  means  of  assigning  with  so  much  certainty 
the  exact  conception  which  they  had  formed  of  man 
and  of  man's  life. 

Man  is  conceived  by  Bentham  as  a  being  susceptible 
of  pleasures  and  pains,  and  governed  in  all  his  conduct 
partly  by  the  different  modifications  of  self-interest,  and 
the  passions  commonly  classed  as  selfish,  partly  by 
sympathies,  or  occasionally  antipathies,  towards  other 
beings.  And  here  Bentham's  conception  of  human 
nature  stops.  He  does  not  exclude  religion  :  the  pros- 
pect of  divine  rewards  and  punishments  he  includes 
under  the  head  of  "  self-regarding  interest ; "  and  the 
devotional  feeling,  under  that  of  sympathy  with  God. 
But  the  whole  of  the  impelling  or  restraining  principles, 
whether  of  this  or  of  another  world,  which  he  recog- 
nizes, are  either  self-love,  or  love  or  hatred  towards 
other  sentient  beings.  That  there  might  be  no  doubt 
of  what  he  thought  on  the  subject,  he  has  not  left  us  to 
the  general  evidence  of  his  writings,  but  has  drawn  out 
a  "  Table  of  the  Springs  of  Action,"  an  express  enume- 
ration and  classification  of  human  motives,  with  their 
various  names,  laudatory,  vituperative,  and  neutral ; 
and  this  table,  to  be  found  in  Part  I.  of  his  collected 
works,  we  recommend  to  the  study  of  those  who  would 
understand  his  philosophy. 


384  BENTHAM. 

Man  is  never  recognized  by  him  as  a  being  capable 
of  pursuing  spiritual  perfection  as  an  end ;  of  desiring, 
for  its  own  sake,  the  conformity  of  his  own  character 
to  his  standard  of  excellence,  without  hope  of  good,  or 
fear  of  evil,  from  other  source  than  his  own  inward  con- 
sciousness. Even  in  the  more  limited  form  of  conscience, 
this  great  fact  in  human  nature  escapes  him.  Nothing 
is  more  curious  than  the  absence  of  recognition,  in  any 
of  his  writings,  of  the  existence  of  conscience,  as  a 
thing  distinct  from  philanthropy,  from  affection  for  God 
or  man,  and  from  self-interest  in  this  world  or  in  the 
next.  There  is  a  studied  abstinence  from  any  of  the 
phrases,  which,  in  the  mouths  of  others,  import  the  ac- 
knowledijment  of  such  a  fact.  *  If  we  find  the  words 
"conscience,"  '^principle,"  "moral  rectitude,"  "moral 
duty,"  in  his  "Table  of  the  Springs  of  Action,"  it  is 
among  the  synonymea  of  the  "  love  of  reputation ; " 
with  an  intimation  as  to  the  two  former  phrases,  that 
they  are  also  sometimes  synonymous  with  the  religious 
motive,  or  the  motive  of  sympathy.  The  feeling  of 
moral  approbation  or  disapprobation,  properly  so  called, 
either  towards  ourselves  or  our  fellow-creatures,  he 
seems  unaware  of  the  existence  of;  and  neither  the 
word  self-respect,  nor  the  idea  to  which  that  word  is 
appropriated,  occurs  even  once,  so  far  as  our  recollec- 
tion serves  us,  in  his  whole  writings. 

Nor  is  it  only  the  moral  part  of  man's  nature,  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  term,  —  the  desire   of  perfection,  or 

*  In  a  passage  in  the  last  volume  of  his  book  on  Evidence,  and  possibly 
in  one  or  two  other  places,  the  "  love  of  justice  "  is  spoken  of  as  a  feeling 
inherent  in  almost  all  mankind.  It  is  impossible,  without  explanations  now 
unattainable,  to  ascertain  what  sense  is  to  be  put  upon  casual  expressions  so 
inconsistent  with  the  general  tenor  of  his  philosophy. 


BENTHAM.  385 

the  feeling  of  an  approving  or  of  an  accusing  con- 
science, —  that  he  overlooks  :  he  but  faintly  recognizes, 
as  a  fact  in  human  nature,  the  pursuit  of  any  other 
ideal  end  for  its  own  sake.  The  sense  of  honor  and 
personal  dignity,  —  that  feeling  of  personal  exaltation 
and  degradation  which  acts  independently  of  other  peo- 
ple's opinion,  or  even  in  defiance  of  it ;  the  love  of 
beauty,  the  passion  of  the  artist ;  the  love  of  order,  of 
congruity,  of  consistency  in  all  things,  and  conformity 
to  their  end  ;  the  love  o^  power,  not  in  the  limited  form 
of  power  over  other  human  beings,  but  abstract  power, 
the  power  of  making  our  volitions  effectual ;  the  love 
of  action,  the  thirst  for  movement  and  activity,  a  prin- 
ciple scarcely  of  less  influence  in  human  life  than  its 
opposite,  the  love  of  ease,  —  none  of  these  powerful 
constituents  of  human  nature  are  thought  worthy  of  a 
place  among  the  "  Springs  of  Action ;  "  and  though 
there  is  possibly  no  one  of  them,  of  the  existence  of 
which  an  acknowledgment  might  not  be  found  in  some 
corner  of  Bentham's  writings,  no  conclusions  are  ever 
founded  on  the  acknowledgment.  Man,  that  most  com- 
plex being,  is  a  very  simple  one  in  his  eyes.  Even 
under  the  head  of  sympathy,  his  recognition  does  not 
extend  to  the  more  complex  forms  of  the  feeling,  —  the 
love  of  loving,  the  need  of  a  sympathizing  support,  or 
of  objects  of  admiration  and  reverence.  If  he  thought 
at  all  of  any  of  the  deeper  feelings  of  human  nature,  it 
was  but  as  idiosyncrasies  of  taste,  with  which  the  mor- 
alist no  more  than  the  legislator  had  any  concern,  further 
than  to  prohibit  such  as  were  mischievous  among  the 
actions  to  which  they  might  chance  to  lead.  To  say 
either  that  man  should,  or  that  he  should  not,  take 
VOL.  I.  •  25 


386  BENTIL\3I. 

pleasure  in  one  thing,  displeasure  in  another,  appeared 
to  him  as  much  an  act  of  despotism  in  the  moralist  as 
in  the  political  ruler. 

It  would  be  most  unjust  to  Bentham  to  surmise  (as 
narrow-minded  and  passionate  adversaries  are  apt  in 
such  cases  to  do)  that  this  picture  of  human  nature  was 
copied  from  himself;  that  all  those  constituents  of 
humanity,  which  he  rejected  from  his  table  of  motives, 
were  wanting  in  his  own  breast.  The  unusual  strenjrth 
of  his  early  feelings  of  virtue  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  original  cause  of  all  his  speculations  ;  and  a  noble 
sense  of  morality,  and  especially  of  justice,  guides  and 
pervades  them  all.  But  having  been  early  accustomed 
to  keep  before  his  mind's  eye  the  happiness  of  mankind 
(or  rather  of  the  whole  sentient  world),  as  the  only 
thing  desirable  in  itself,  or  which  rendered  any  thing 
else  desirable,  he  confounded  all  disinterested  feelinjjs 
which  he  found  in  himself  with  the  desire  of  general 
happiness ;  just  as  some  religious  writers,  who  loved 
virtue  for  its  own  sake,  as  much  perhaps  as  men  could 
do,  habitually  confounded  their  love  of  vii*tue  with  their 
fear  of  hell.  It  would  have  required  greater  subtlety 
than  Bentham  possessed  to  distinguish  from  each  other 
feelings,  which,  from  long  habit,  always  acted  in  the 
same  direction ;  and  his  want  of  imagination  prevented 
him  from  reading  the  distinction,  where  it  is  legible 
enough,  in  the  hearts  of  others. 

Accordingly,  he  has  not  been  followed  in  this  grand 
oversight  by  any  of  the  able  men,  who,  from  the  ex- 
tent of  their  intellectual  obligations  to  him,  have  been 
regarded  as  his  disciples.  They  may  have  followed 
him  in  his  doctrine  of  utility,  and  in  his  rejection  of  a 


BEXTHAM.  387 

moral  sense  as  the  test  of  right  and  wrong ;  but,  while 
repudiating  it  as  such,  they  have,  with  Hartley,  ac- 
knowledged it  as  a  fact  in  human  nature;  they  have 
endeavored  to  accotmt  for  it,  to  assign  its  laws  :  nor 
are  they  justly  chargeable  either  with  undervaluing  this 
part  of  our  nature,  or  with  any  disposition  to  throw  it 
into  the  background  of  their  speculations.  If  any  part 
of  the  influence  of  this  cardinal  error  has  extended  itself 
to  them,  it  is  circuitously,  and  through  the  effect  on 
their  minds  of  other  parts  of  Bentham's  doctrines. 

Sympathy,  the  only  disinterested  motive  which  Ben- 
tham  recognized,  he  felt  the  inadequacy  of,  except  in 
certain  limited  cases,  as  a  security  for  virtuous  action. 
Personal  affection,  he  well  knew,  is  as  liable  to  operate 
to  the  injury  of  third  parties,  and  requires  as  much  to 
be  kept  under  government,  as  any  other  feehng  what- 
ever ;  and  general  philanthropy,  considered  as  a  motive 
influencing  mankind  in  general,  he  estimated  at  its  true 
value,  when  divorced  from  the  feeling  of  duty,  —  as  the 
very  weakest  and  most  unsteady  of  all  feelings.  There 
remained,  as  a  motive  by  which  mankind  are  influenced, 
and  by  which  they  may  be  guided  to  their  good,  only,  i 
personal  interest.  Accordingly,  Bentham's  idea  of  the  ' 
world  is  that  of  a  collection  of  persons  pursuing  each 
his  separate  interest  or  pleasure,  and  the  prevention  of 
whom  from  jostling  one  another  more  than  is  unavoid- 
able may  be  attempted  by  hopes  and  fears  derived  from 
three  sources,  —  the  law,  religion,  and  public  opinion. 
To  these  three  powers,  considered  as  binding  human 
conduct,  he  gave  the  name  of  sanctions,  —  the  political 
sanction,  operating  by  the  rewards  and  penalties  of  the 
law;    the  religious  sanction,  by  those  expected  from 


388  BENTHAM. 

the  Ruler  of  the  universe ;  and  the  popular^  which  he 
characteristically  calls  also  the  moral  sanction,  operat- 
ing through  the  pains,  and  pleasures  arising  from  the 
favor  or  disfavor  of  our  fellow-creatures. 

Such  is  Bentham's  theory  of  the  world.  And  now, 
in  a  spirit  neither  of  apology  nor  of  censure,  but  of 
calm  appreciation,  we  are  to  inquire  how  far  this  view 
of  human  nature  and  life  will  carry  any  one ;  how 
much  it  wiU  accQmplish  in  morals,  and  how  much  in 
political  and  social  philosophy  ;  what  it  will  do  for  the 
individual,  and  what  for  society. 

It  will  do  nothing  for  the  conduct  of  the  individual, 
beyond  prescribing  some  of  the  more  obvious  dictates 
of  worldly  prudence,  and  outward  probity  and  benefi- 
cence. There  is  no  need  to  expatiate  on  the  deficien- 
cies of  a  system  of  ethics  which  does  not  pretend  to 
aid  individuals  in  the  formation  of  their  own  character ; 
which  recognizes  no  such  wdsh  as  that  of  self-culture, 
we  may  even  say,  no  such  power,  as  existing  in  human 
nature ;  and,  if  it  did  recognize,  could  furnish  little 
assistance  to  that  great  duty,  because  it  overlooks  the 
existence  of  about  half  of  the  whole  number  of  mental 
feelings  which  human  beings  are  capable  of,  including 
all  those  of  which  the  direct  objects  are  states  of  their 
own  mind. 

Morality  consists  of  two  parts.  One  of  these  Is  self- 
education,  —  the  training,  by  the  human  being  himself, 
of  his  affections  and  will.  That  department  is  a  blank 
in  Bentham's  system.  The  other  and  co-equall  part, 
the  regulation  of  his  outward  actions,  must  be  alto- 
gether halting  and  imperfect  without  the  first ;  for  how 
can  we  judge  in  what  manner  many  an  action  will  affect 


BENTHAM.  389 

even  the  worldly  interests  of  ourselves  or  others,  unless 
we  take  in,  as  part  of  the  question,  its  influence  on  the 
regulation  of  our  or  their  affections  and  desires?  A 
moralist  on  Bentham's  principles  may  get  as  far  as  this, 
that  he  ought  not  to  slay,  burn,  or  steal ;  but  what  will 
be  his  qualifications  for  regulating  the  nicer  shades  of 
human  behavior,  or  for  laying  down  even  the  greater 
moralities  as  to  those  facts  in  human  life  which  are 
liable  to  influence  the  depths  of  the  character  quite  inde- 
pendently of  any  influence  on  worldly  circumstances,  — 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  sexual  relations,  or  those  of 
family  in  general,  or  any  other  social  and  sympathetic 
connections  of  an  intimate  kind?  The  moralities  of 
these  questions  depend  essentially  on  considerations 
which  Bentham  never  so  much  as  took  into  the  ac- 
count ;  and,  when  he  happened  to  be  in  the  right,  it 
was  always,  and  necessarily,  on  wrong  or  insufiicient 
grounds. 

It  is  fortunate  for  the  world  that  Bentham's  taste 
lay  rather  in  the  direction  of  jurisprudential,  than  of 
properly  ethical,  inquiry.  Nothing  expressly  of  the 
latter  kind  has  been  published  under  his  name,  except 
the  "  Deontology,*'  —  a  book  scarcely  ever,  in  our  expe- 
rience, alluded  to  by  any  admirer  of  Bentham,  without 
deep  regret  that  it  ever  saw  the  light.  We  did  not 
expect  from  Bentham  correct  systematic  views  of  ethics, 
or  a  sound  treatment  of  any  question,  the  moralities  of 
which  require  a  profound  knowledge  of  the  human 
heart ;  but  we  did  anticipate  that  the  greater  moral 
questions  would  have  been  boldly  plunged  into,  and  at 
least  a  searching  criticism  produced  of  the  received 
opinions :    we  did  not  expect  that  the  petite   morale 


390  BENTHAM. 

almost  alone  would  have  been  treated,  and  that  with 
the  most  pedantic  minuteness,  and  on  the  quid  pro  quo 
principles  which  regulate  trade.  The  book  has  not 
even  the  value  which  would  belong  to  an  authentic 
exhibition  of  the  legitimate  consequences  of  an  errone- 
ous line  of  thought ;  for  the  style  proves  it  to  have 
been  so  entirely  rewritten,  that  it  is  impossible  to  tell 
how  much  or  how  little  of  it  is  Bentham's.  The  col- 
lected edition,  now  in  progress,  will  not,  it  is  said, 
include  Bentham's  reliodous  writino:s  :  these,  although 
we  think  most  of  them  of  exceedingly  small  value,  are 
at  least  his  ;  and  the  world  has  a  right  to  whatever  light 
they  throw  upon  the  constitution  of  his  mind.  But  the 
omission  of  the  "  Deontology "  would  be  an  act  of 
editorial  discretion  which  we  should  deem  entirely 
justifiable. 

If  Bentham's  theory  of  life  can  do  so  little  for  the 
individual,  what  can  it  do  for  society? 

It  will  enable  a  society  which  has  attained  a  certain 
state  of  spiritual  development,  and  the  maintenance  of 
which  in  that  state  is  otherwise  provided  for,  to  pre- 
scribe the  rules  by  which  it  may  protect  its  material 
interests.  It  will  do  nothing  (except  sometimes  as  an 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  a  higher  doctrine)  for  the 
spiritual  interests  of  society ;  nor  does  it  suffice  of  itself 
even  for  the  material  interests.  That  which  alone  causes 
any  material  interests  to  exist,  which  alone  enables  any 
body  of  human  beings  to  exist  as  a  society,  is  national 
character :  that  it  is  which  causes  one  nation  to  succeed 
in  what  it  attempts,  another  to  fail ;  one  nation  to 
understand  and  aspire  to  elevated  things,  another  to 
grovel  in  mean  ones ;  which  makes  the  greatness  of  one 


BENTHAM.  391 

nation  lasting,  and  dooms  another  to  early  and  rapid 
decay.  The  true  teacher  of  the  fitting  social  arrange- 
ments for  England,  Fi'ance,  or  America,  is  the  one 
who  can  point  out  how  the  English,  French,  or  Ameri- 
can character  can  be  improved,  and  how  it  has  been 
made  what  it  is.  A  philosophy  of  laws  and  institu- 
tions, not  founded  on  a  philosophy  of  national  char- 
acter, is  an  absurdity.  But  what  could  Bentham's 
opinion  be  worth  on  national  character?  How  could 
he,  whose  mind  contained  so  few  and  so  poor  types  of 
individual  character,  rise  to  that  higher  generalization  ? 
All  he  can  do  is  but  to  indicate  means  by  which,  in  any 
given  state  of  the  national  mind,  the  material  interests 
of  society  can  be  protected ;  saving  the  question,  of 
which  others  must  judge,  whether  the  use  of  those 
means  would  have,  on  the  national  character,  any 
injurious  influence. 

We  have  arrived,  then,  at  a  sort  of  estimate  of  what 
a  philosophy  like  Bentham's  can  do.  It  can  teach  the 
means  of  organizing  and  regulating  the  merely  business 
part  of  the  social  arrangements.  Whatever  can  be 
understood,  or  whatever*  done,  without  reference  to 
moral  influences,  his  philosophy  is  equal  to  :  where 
those  influences  require  to  be  taken  into  account,  it  is 
at  fault.  He  committed  the  mistake  of  supposing  that 
the  business  part  of  human  affairs  was  the  whole  of 
them ;  all,  at  least,  that  the  legislator  and  the  moral- 
ist had  to  do  with.  Not  that  he  disregarded  moral 
influences  when  he  perceived  them ;  but  his  want  of 
imagination,  small  experience  of  human  feelings,  and 
ignorance  of  the  filiation  and  connection  of  feelings 
with  one  another,  made  this  rarely  the  case. 


392  BENTKAM. 

The  business  part  is  accordingly  the  only  province  of 
human  affairs  which  Bentham  has  cultivated  with  any 
success  ;  into  which  he  has  introduced  any  considerable 
number  of  comprehensive  and  luminous  practical  prin- 
ciples. That  is  the  field  of  his  greatness ;  and  there  he 
is  indeed  great.  He  has  swept  away  the  accumulated 
cobwebs  of  centuries  ;  he  has  untied  knots  which  the 
efforts  of  the  ablest  thinkers,  age  after  age,  had  only 
drawn  tighter ;  and  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  of  him, 
that,  over  a  great  part  of  the  field,  he  was  the  first  to 
shed  the  light  of  reason. 

We  turn  with  pleasure  from  what  Bentham  could  not 
do  to  what  he  did.  It  is  an  ungracious  task  to  call  a 
great  benefactor  of  mankind  to  account  for  not  being 
a  greater ;  to  insist  upon  the  errors  of  a  man  who  has 
originated  more  new  truths,  has  given  to  the  world  more 
sound  practical  lessons,  than  it  ever  received,  except  in 
a  few  glorious  instances,  from  any  other  individual. 
The  unpleasing  part  of  our  work  is  ended.  We  are 
now  to  show  the  greatness  of  the  man  ;  the  grasp  which 
his  intellect  took  of  the  subjects  with  which  it  was  fitted 
to  deal ;  the  giant's  task  which  was  before  him  ;  and  the 
hero's  couraoe  and  streng-th  with  which  he  achieved  it. 
Nor  let  that  which  he  did  be  deemed  of  small  account 
because  its  province  was  limited :  man  has  but  the 
choice  to  go  a  little  way  in  many  paths,  or  a  great  way 
in  only  one.  The  field  of  Bentham's  labors  was  like 
the  space  between  two  parallel  lines,  — narrow  to  excess 
in  one  direction ;  in  another,  it  reached  to  infinity. 

Bentham's  speculations,  as  we  are  already  aware,  be- 
gan with  law  ;  and  in  that  department  he  accomplished 


BENTHAM.  393 

his  greatest  triumphs.  He  found  the  philosophy  of  law 
a  chaos  :  he  left  it  a  science.  He  found  the  practice  of 
the  law  an  Augean  stable  :  he  turned  the  river  into  it 
which  is  mining  and  sweeping  away  mound  after  mound 
of  its  rubbish. 

Without  joining  in  the  exaggerated  invectives  against 
lawyers  which  Bentham  sometimes  permitted  to  him- 
self, or  making  one  portion  of  society  alone  accountable 
for  the  fault  of  all,  we  may  say,  that  circumstances  had 
made  English  lawyers,  in  a  peculiar  degree,  liable  to 
the  reproach  of  Voltaire,  who  defines  lawyers  the  "con- 
servators of  ancient  barbarous  usages."  The  basis  of 
the  English  law  was,  and  still  is,  the  feudal  system. 
That  system,  hke  all  those  which  existed  as  custom 
before  they  were  established  as  law,  possessed  a  certain 
degree  of  suitableness  to  the  -wants  of  the  society  among 
whom  it  grew  up ;  that  is  to  say,  of  a  tribe  of  rude 
soldiers,  holding  a  conquered  people  in  subjection,  and 
dividing  its  spoils  among  themselves.  Advancing  civ- 
ilization had,  however,  converted  this  armed  encamp- 
ment of  barbarous  warriors,  in  the  midst  of  enemies 
reduced  to  slavery,  into  an  industrious,  commercial, 
rich,  and  free  people.  The  laws  which  were  suitable  to 
the  first  of  these  states  of  society  could  have  no  manner 
of  relation  to  the  circumstances  of  the  second ;  which 
could  not  even  have  come  into  existence,  unless  some- 
thing had  been  done  to  adapt  those  laws  to  it.  But  the 
adaptation  was  not  the  result  of  thought  and  design  :  it 
arose  not  from  any  comprehensive  consideration  of  the 
new  state  of  society  and  its  exigencies.  What  was 
done,  was  done  by  a  struggle  of  centuries  between  the 
old  barbarism  and  the  new  civilization  ;  between  the  feu- 


394  BENTHAM. 

dal  aristocracy  of  conquerors  holding  fast  to  the  rude, 
system  they  had  established,  and  the  conquered  effecting 
then*  emancipation.  The  last  was  the  growing  power, 
but  was  never  strong  enough  to  break  its  bonds,  though 
ever  and  anon  some  weak  point  gave  way.  Hence  the 
law  came  to  be  like  the  costume  of  a  full-gi'own  man 
who  had  never  put  off  the  clothes  made  for  him  when 
he  first  went  to  school.  Band  after  band  had  burst ; 
and  as  the  rent  widened,  then,  without  removing  any 
thing  except  what  might  drop  off  of  itself,  the  hole 
was  darned,  or  patches  of  fresh  law  were  brought  from 
the  nearest  shop,  and  stuck  on.  Hence  all  ages  of 
English  history  have  given  one  another  rendezvous  in 
English  law  :  their  several  products  may  be  seen  all 
together,  not  interfused,  but  heaped  one  upon  another, 
as  many  different  ages  of  the  earth  may  be  read  in  some 
perpendicular  section  of  its  surface ;  the  deposits  of 
each  successive  period  not  substituted,  but  superim- 
posed on  those  of  the  preceding.  And  in  the  world 
of  law,  no  less  than  in  the  physical  world,  every  commo- 
tion and  conflict  of  the  elements  has  lefl  its  mark  behind 
in  some  break  or  irregularity  of  the  strata.  Every 
struggle  which  ever  rent  the  bosom  of  society  is  appa- 
rent in  the  disjointed  condition  of  the  part  of  the  field 
of  law  which  covers  the  spot :  nay,  the  very  traps  and 
pitfalls  which  one  contending  party  set  for  another 
are  still  standing ;  and  the  teeth,  not  of  hyenas  only, 
but  of  foxes  and  all  cunning  animals,  are  imprinted 
on  the  curious  remains  found  in  these  antediluvian 
caves. 

In  the  English  law,  as  in  the  Roman  before  it,  the 
adaptations  of  barbarous  laws  to  the  growth  of  civilized 


BENTHAM.  395 

society  were  made  chiefly  by  stealth.  They  were  gen- 
erally made  by  the  courts  of  justice,  who  could  not  help 
reading:  the  new  wants  of  mankind  in  the  cases  between 
man  and  man  which  came  before  them ;  but  who,  hav- 
ing no  authority  to  make  new  laws  for-  those  new  wants, 
were  obliged^  to  do  the  work  covertly,  and  evade  the 
jealousy  and  opposition  of  an  ignorant,  prejudiced,  and, 
for  the  most  part,  brutal  and  tyrannical  legislature. 
Some  of  the  most  necessary  of  these  improvements, 
such  as  the  eivinor  force  of  law  to  trusts  and  the  break- 
ing-up  of  entails,  were  effected  in  actual  opposition  to 
the  strongly  declared  will  of  Parliament,  whose  clumsy 
hands,  no  match  for  the  astuteness  of  judges,  could 
not,  after  repeated  trials,  manage  to  make  any  law 
which  the  judges  could  not  find  a  trick  for  rendering 
inoperative.  The  whole  history  of  the  contest  about 
trusts  may  still  be  read  in  the  words  of  a  conveyance, 
as  could  the  contest  about  entails,  till  the  abolition  of 
fine  and  recovery  by  a  bill  of  the  present  Attorney- 
General  ;  but  dearly  did  the  client  pay  for  the  cabinet 
of  historical  curiosities  which  he  was  obliged  to  pur- 
chase every  time  that  he  made  a  settlement  of  his 
estate.  The  result  of  this  mode  of  improving  social 
institutions  was,  that  whatever  new  things  were  done 
had  to  be  done  in  consistency  with  old  forms  and  names  ; 
and  t^he  laws  were  improved  with  much  the  same  effect, 
as  if,  in  the  improvement  of  agriculture,  the  plough 
could  only  have  been  introduced  by  making  it  look  like 
a  spade  ;  or  as  if,  when  the  primeval  practice  of  plough- 
ing by  the  horse's  tail  gave  way  to  the  innovation  of 
harness,  the  tail,  for  form's  sake,  had  still  remained 
attached  to  the  plough. 


396  BENTHA3I. 

When  the  conflicts  were  over,  and  the  mixed  mas8 
settled  down  into  something  like  a  fixed  state,  and  that 
state  a  very  profitable  and  therefore  a  very  agreeable 
one  to  lawyers,  they,  following  the  natural  tendency  of 
the  human  mind,  began  to  theorize  upon  it,  and,  in 
obedience  to  necessity,  had  to  digest  it,  and  give  it  a 
systematic  form.  It  was  from  this  thing  of  shreds  and 
patches,  in  which  the  only  part  that  approached  to  order 
or  system  was  the  early  barbarous  part,  already  more 
than  half  superseded,  that  English  lawyers  had  to  con- 
struct, by  induction  and  abstraction,  their  philosophy 
of  law,  and  without  the  logical  habits  and  general  in- 
tellectual cultivation  which  the  lawyers  of  the  Roman 
empire  brought  to  a  similar  task.  Bentham  found  the 
philosophy  of  law  what  English  practising  lawyers  had 
made  it,  —  a  jumble,  in  which  real  and  personal  prop- 
erty, law  and  equity,  felony,  premunire,  misprision, 
and  misdemeanor,  —  words  without  a  vestige  of  mean- 
ing when  detached  from  the  history  of  English  institu- 
tions ;  mere  tide-marks  to  point  out  the  line  which 
the  sea  and  the  shore,  in  their  secular  struggles,  had 
adjusted  as  their  mutual  boundary,  —  all  passed  for 
distinctions  inherent  in  the  nature  of  things  ;  in  which 
every  absurdity,  every  lucrative  abuse,  had  a  reason 
found  for  it,  — a  reason  which  only  now  and  then  even 
pretended  to  be  drawn  from  expediency ;  most  com- 
monly a  technical  reason,  one  of  mere  form,  derived 
from  the  old  barbarous  system.  While  the  theory  of 
the  law  was  in  this  state,  to  describe  what  the  practice 
of  it  was  would  require  the  pen  of  a  Swift,  or  of  Ben- 
tham himself.  The  whole  progress  of  a  suit  at  law 
seemed  like  a  series  of  contrivances  for  lawyers'  profit, 


BEjJfTHAM.  397 

iu  which  the  suitors  were  regarded  as  the  prey ;  and,  if 
the  poor  were  not  the  helpless  victims  of  every  Sir 
Giles  Overreach  who  could  pay  .the  price,  they  might 
thank  opinion  and  manners  for  it,  not  the  law. 

It  may  be  fancied  by  some  people,  that  Bentham  did 
an  easy  thing  in  merely  calling  all  this  absurd,  and 
proving  it  to  be  so.  But  he  began  the  contest  a  young 
man,  and  he  had  grown  old  before  he  had  any  followers. 
History  will  one  day  refuse  to  give  credit  to  the  inten- 
sity of  the  superstition  which,  till  very  lately,  protected 
this  mischievous  mess  from  examination  or  doubt,  — 
passed  off  the  charming  representations  of  Blackstone 
for  a  just  estimate  of  the  English  law,  and  proclaimed 
the  shame  of  human  reason  to  be  the  perfection  of  it. 
Glory  to  Bentham  that  he  has  dealt  to  this  superstition 
its  deathblow ;  that  he  has  been  the  Hercules  of  this 
hydra,  the  St.  George  of  this  pestilent  dragon  !  The 
honor  is  all  his  :  nothing  but  his  peculiar  qualities 
could  have  done  it.  There  were  wanted  his  indefatigable 
perseverance ;  his  firm  self-reliance,  needing  no  support 
from  other  men's  opinion ;  his  intensely  practical  turn 
of  mind ;  his  synthetical  habits ;  above  all,  his  peculiar 
method.  Metaphysicians,  armed  with  vague  generali- 
ties, had  often  tried  their  hands  at  the  subject,  and  left 
it  no  more  advanced  than  they  found  it.  Law  is  a 
matter  of  business ;  means  and  ends  are  the  things  to 
be  considered  in  it,  not  abstractions  :  vagueness  was  not 
to  be  met  by  vagueness,  but -by  definiteness  and  pre- 
cision ;  details  were  not  to  be  encountered  with  gener- 
alities, but  with  details.  Nor  could  any  progress  be 
made  on  such  a  subject  by  merely  showing  that  exist- 
ing things  were  bad  :  it  was  necessary  also  to  show  how 


398  BENTHAM. 

they  might  be  made  better.  No  great  man  whom  we 
read  of  was  qualified  to  do  this  thing,  except  Bentham. 
He  has  done  it,  once  and  for  ever. 

Into  the  particulars  of  what  Bentham  has  done  we 
cannot  enter :  many  hundred  pages  would  be  required 
to  give  a  tolerable  abstract  of  it.  To  sum  up  our  esti- 
mate under  a  few  heads  :  First,  He  has  expelled  mysti- 
cism from  the  philosophy  of  law,  and  set  the  example 
of  viewing  laws  in  a  practical  light,  as  means  to  certain 
definite  and  precise  ends.  Secondly,  He  has  cleared  up 
the  confusion  and  vagueness  attaching  to  the  idea  of 
law  in  general,  to  the  idea  of  a  body  of  laws,  and  all 
the  general  ideas  therein  involved.  Thirdly,  He  demon- 
strated the  necessity  and  practicability  of  codification , 
or  the  conversion  of  all  law  into  a  written  and  system- 
atically arranged  code  ;  not  like  the  Code  Napoleon,  — 
a  code  without  a  single  definition,  requiring  a  constant 
reference  to  anterior  precedent  for  the  meaning  of  its 
technical  terms, — but  one  containing  within  itself  all 
that  is  necessary  for  its  own  interpretation,  together 
with  a  perpetual  provision  for  its  o\^ti  emendation 
and  improvement.  He  has  shown  of  what  parts  such 
a  code  would  consist ;  the  relation  of  those  parts  to 
one  another  ;  and,  by  his  distinctions  and  classifications, 
has  done  very  much  towards  showing  what  should 
be,  or  might  be,  its  nomenclature  and  arrangement. 
What  he  has  left  undone,  he  has  made  it  comparatively 
easy  for  others  to  do.-  Fourthly,  He  has  taken  a 
systematic  view*  of  the  exigencies  of  society  for  which 
the   civil   code   is    intended    to    provide,    and    of  the 

*  See  the  "  Principles  of  Civil  Law,"  contained  in  Part  II.  of  his  collected 
works. 


BENTHAM.  399 

principles  of  human  nature  by  which  its  provisions 
are  to  be  tested ;  and  this  view,  defective  (as  we  have 
ah-eady  intimated)  wherever  spii'itual  interests  require  to 
be  taken  into  account,  is  excellent  for  that  large  portion 
of  the  laws  of  any  country  which  are  designed  for  the 
protection  of  material  interests.  Fifthly  (to  say  noth- 
ing of  the  subject  of  punishment,  for  which  something 
considerable  had  been  done  before) ,  He  found  the  phi- 
losophy of  judicial  procedure,  including  that  of  judicial 
establishments  and  of  evidence,  in  a  more  wretched 
state  than  even  any  other  part  of  the  philosophy  of  law  : 
he  carried  it  at  once  almost  to  perfection.  He  left  it 
with  every  one  of  its  principles  established,  and  little 
remaining  to  be  done  even  in  the  suggestion  of  practical 
arrangements. 

These  assertions  in  behalf  of  Bentham  may  be  left, 
without  fear  for  the  result,  in  the  hands  of  those  who 
are  competent  to  judge  of  them.  There  are  now,  even 
in  the  highest  seats  of  justice,  men  to  whom  the  claims 
made  for  him  will  not  appear  extravagant.  Principle 
after  principle  of  those  propounded  by  him  is  moreover 
making  its  way  by  infiltration  into  the  understandings 
most  shut  against  his  influence,  and  driving  nonsense 
and  prejudice  from  one  corner  of  them  to  another.  The 
reform  of  the  laws  of  any  country,  according  to  his 
principles,  can  only  be  gradual,  and  may  be  long  ere  it 
is  accomplished ;  but  the  work  is  in  progress,  and  both 
parliament  and  the  judges  are  every  year  doing  some- 
thing, and  often  something  not  inconsiderable,  towards 
the  forwarding  of  it. 

It  seems  proper  here  t<5  take  notice  of  an  accusation 
sometimes  made  both  against  Bentham  and  against  the 


400  BENTHAM. 

principle  of  codification,  —  as  if  they  required  one  uni- 
form suit  of  ready-made  laws  for  all  times  and  all  states 
of  society.  The  doctrine  of  codification,  as  the  word 
imports,  relates  to  the  form  only  of  the  laws,  not  their 
substance :  it  does  not  concern  itself  with  what  the  laws 
should  be,  but  declares,  that,  whatever  they  are,  they 
ought  to  be  systematically  arranged,  and  fixed  down  to 
a  determinate  form  of  words.  To  the  accusation,  so  far 
as  it  aflTects  Bentham,  one  of  the  essays  in  the  collection 
of  his  works  (then  for  the  first  time  published  in  Eng- 
lish) is  a  complete  answer,  —  that  "  On  the  Influence 
of  Time  and  Place  in  Matters  of  Legislation."  It  may 
there  be  seen  that  the  dliferent  exigencies  of  different 
nations  with  respect  to  law  occupied  his  attention  as 
systematically  as  any  other  portion  of  the  wants  which 
render  laws  necessary ;  with  the  limitations,  it  is  true, 
which  were  set  to  all  his  speculations  by  the  imperfec- 
tions of  his  theory  of  human  nature.  For,  taking,  as 
we  have  seen,  next  to  no  account  of  national  character, 
and  the  causes  which  form  and  maintain  it,  he  was  pre- 
cluded from  considering,  except  to  a  very  limited  extent, 
the  laws  of  a  country  as  an  instrument  of  national 
culture,  —  one  of  their  most  important  aspects,  and  in 
which  they  must  of  course  vary  according  to  the  degree 
and  kind  of  culture  already  attained,  as  a  tutor  gives 
his  pupil  different  lessons  according  to  the  progress 
already  made  in  his  education.  The  same  laws  would 
not  have  suited  our  wild  ancestors,  accustomed  to  rude 
independence,  and  a  people  of  Asiatics  bowed  down  by 
military  despotism :  the  slave  needs  to  be  trained  to 
govern  himself,  the  savage  to  submit  to  the  government 
of  others.     The  same  laws  will  not  suit  the  English, 


BENTHAM.  401 

who  distrust  every  tiling  Avhich  emanates  from  general 
principles,  and  the  French,  who  distrust  whatever  does 
not  so  emanate.  Very  different  institutions  are  needed 
to  train  to  the  perfection  of  their  nature,  or  to  constitute 
into  a  united  nation  and  social  polity,  an  essentially 
subjective  people  like  the  Germans,  and  an  essentially 
ohjective  people  like  those  of  Northern  and  Central 
Italy,  —  the  one  affectionate  and  dreamy,  the  other 
passionate  ^.nd  worldly ;  the  one  trustful  and  loyal,  the 
other  calculating  and  suspicious ;  the  one  not  prac- 
tical enough,  the  other  overmuch ;  the  one  wanting 
individuality,  the  other  fellow-feeling;  the  one  failing 
for  want  of  exacting  enough  for  itself,  the  other  for 
want  of  conceding  enough  to  others.  Bentham  was 
little  accustomed  to  look  at  institutions  in  their  relation 
to  these  topics.  The  effects  of  this  oversight  must,  of 
course,  be  perceptible  throughout  his  speculations  ;  but 
we  do  not  think  the  errors  into  which  it  led  him  very 
material  in  the  greater  part  of  civil  and  penal  law  :  it  is 
in  the  department  of  constitutional  legislation  that  they 
were  fundamental. 

The  Benthamic  theory  of  government  has  made  so 
much  noise  in  the  world  of  late  years,  it  has  held  such 
a  conspicuous  place  among  Radical  philosophies,  and 
Kadical  modes  of  thinking  have  participated  so  much 
more  largely  than  any  others  in  its  spirit,  that  many 
worthy  persons  imagine  there  is  no  other  Radical 
philosophy  extant.  Leaving  such  people  to  discover 
their  mistake  as  they  may,  we  shall  expend  a  few  words 
in  attempting  to  discriminate  between  the  truth  and 
error  of  this  celebrated  theory. 

There  are  three  great  questions  in  government. 
VOL.  I.  26 


402  BENTHAM. 

First,  To  what  authority  is  it  for  the  good  of  the  people 
that  they  should  be  subject  ?  Secondly,  How  are  they 
to  be  induced  to  obey  that  authority  ?  The  answers  to 
these  two  questions  vary  indefinitely,  according  to  the 
degree  and  kind  of  civilization  and  cultivation  already 
attained  by  a  people,  and  their  peculiar  aptitudes  for 
receiving  more.  Comes  next  a  third  question,  not  liable 
to  so  much  variation ;  namely,  By  what  means  are  the 
abuses  of  this  authority  to  be  checked?  This  third 
question  is  the  only  one  of  the  three  to  which  Bentham 
seriously  applies  himself;  and  he  gives  it  the  only 
answer  it  admits  of,  —  Responsibility  ;  responsibility  to 
persons  whose  interest,  whose  obvious  and  recognizable 
interest,  accords  with  the  end  in  ^-iew,  —  good  govern- 
ment. This  being  granted,  it  is  next  to  be  asked.  In 
what  body  of  persons  this  identity  of  interest  with  good 
government  (that  is,  with  the  interest  of  the  whole 
community)  is  to  be  found?  In  nothing  less,  says 
Bentham,  than  the  numerical  majority ;  nor,  say  we, 
even  in  the  numerical  majority  itself:  of  no  portion 
of  the  community  less  than  all  will  the  interest  coin- 
cide, at  all  times  and  in  all  respects,  with  the  interest 
of  all.  But  since  power  given  to  all,  by  a  representa- 
tive government,  is,  in  fact,  given  to  a  majority,  we  are 
obliged  to  fall  back  upon  the  first  of  our  thtee  ques- 
tions ;  namely,  Under  what  authority  is  it  for  the  good 
of  the  people  that  they  be  placed  ?  And  if  to  this  the 
answer  be.  Under  that  of  a  majority  among  themselves, 
Bentham's  system  cannot  be  questioned.  This  one 
assumption  being  made,  his  "Constitutional  Code"  is 
admirable.  That  extraordinary  power  which  he  pos- 
sessed, of  at  once  seizing  comprehensive  principles,  and 


BENTHAM.  403 

scheming  out  minute  details,  is  brought  into  play  with 
surpassing  vigor  in  devising  means  for  preventing  rulers 
from  escaping  from  the  control  of  the  majority ;  for 
enabling  and  inducing  the  majority  to  exercise  that  con- 
trol unremittingly  ;  and  for  providing  them  with  servants 
of  every  desirable  endowment,  moral  and  intellectual, 
compatible  with  entire  subservience  to  their  will. 

But  is  this  fundamental  doctrine  of  Bentham's  polit- 
ical philosophy  an  universal  truth?  Is  it,  at  all  times 
and  places,  good  for  mankind  to  be  under  the  absolute 
authority  of  the  majority  of  themselves  ?  We  say,  the 
authority ;  not  the  political  authority  merely,  because  it 
is  chimerical  to  suppose  that  whatever  has  absolute 
power  over  men's  bodies  wUl  not  arrogate  it  over  their 
minds  ;  will  not  seek  to  control  (not  perhaps  by  legal 
penalties,  but  by  the  persecutions  of  society)  opinions 
and  feelings  which  depart  from  its  standard ;  will  not 
attempt  to  shape  the  education  of  the  young  by  its 
model,  and  to  extinguish  all  books,  all  schools,  all  com- 
binations of  individuals  for  joint  action  upon  society, 
which  may  be  attempted  for  the  purpose  of  keeping 
alive  a  spirit  at  variance  with  its  own.  Is  it,  we  say, 
the  proper  condition  of  man,  in  all  ages  and  nations,  to 
be  imder  the  despotism  of  Public  Opinion  ? 

It  is  very  conceivable  that  such  a  doctrine  should  find 
acceptance  from  some  of  the  noblest  spirits  in  a  time 
of  re-action  against  the  aristocratic  governments  of 
modern  Europe,  —  governments  founded  on  the  entire 
sacrifice  (except  so  far  as  prudence,  and  sometimes 
humane  feeling,  interfere)  of  the  community  generally 
to  the  self-interest  and  ease  of  a  few.  European  re- 
formers  have   been   accustomed  to   see  the  numerical 


404  BENTHAM. 

majority  everywhere  unjustly  depressed,  everywhere 
trampled  upon,  or  at  the  best  overlooked,  by  govern- 
ments ;  nowhere  possessing  power  enough  to  extort 
redress  of  their  most  positive  grievances,  provision  for 
their  mental  culture,  or  even  to  prevent  themselves  from 
being  taxed  avowedly  for  the  pecuniary  profit  of  the 
ruling  classes.  To  see  these  things,  and  to  seek  to  put 
an  end  to  them  by  means  (among  other  things)  of  giv- 
ing more  political  power  to  the  majority,  constitutes 
Radicalism ;  and  it  is  because  so  many  in  this  age  have 
felt  this  wish,  and  have  felt  that  the  realization  of  it 
was  an  object  worthy  of  men's  devoting  their  lives  to 
it,  that  such  a  theory  of  government  as  Bentham's  has 
found  favor  with  them.  But,  though  to  pass  from  one 
form  of  bad  government  to  another  be  the  ordinary 
fate  of  mankind,  philosophers  ought  not  to  make  them- 
selves parties  to  it  by  sacrificing  one  portion  of  impor- 
tant truth  to  another. 

The  numerical  majority  of  any  society  whatever, 
must  consist  of  persons  all  standing  in  the  same  social 
position,  and  having,  in  the  main,  the  same  pursuits ; 
namely,  unskilled  manual  laborers.  And  we  mean  no 
disparagement  to  them :  whatever  we  say  to  their  dis- 
advantage, we  say  equally  of  a  numerical  majority  of 
shopkeepers  or  of  squires.  Where  there  is  identity 
of  position  and  pursuits,  there  also  will  be  identity  of 
partialities,  passions,  and  prejudices  ;  and  to  give  to  any 
one  set  of  partialities,  passions,  and  prejudices,  absolute 
power,  without  counter-balance  from  partialities,  pas- 
sions, and  prejudices  of  a  different  sort,  is  the  way  to 
render  the  correction  of  any  of  those  imperfections  hope- 
less ;   to  make  one  narrow,  mean  type  of  human  nature 


BENTHAM.  405 

universal  and  perpetual ;  and  to  crush  every  influence 
which  tends  to  the  further  improvement  of  man's  intel- 
lectual and  moral  natm'e.  There  must,  we  know,  be 
some  paramount  power  in  society ;  and  that  the  majority 
should  be  that  power,  is,  on  the  whole,  right,  not  as 
being  just  in  itself,  but  as  being  less  unjust  than  any 
other  footing  on  which  the  matter  can  be  placed.  But  it 
is  necessary  that  the  institutions  of  society  should  make 
provision  for  keeping  up,  in  some  form  or  other,  as  a 
corrective  to  partial  views,  and  a  shelter  for  freedom 
of  thought  and  individuality  of  character,  a  perpetual 
and  standing  opposition  to  the  will  of  the  majority. 
All  countries  which  have  long  continued  progressive, 
or  been  durably  great,  have  been  so  because  there  has 
been  an  organized  opposition  to  the  ruling  power,  of 
whatever  kind  that  power  was,  — plebeians  to  patricians, 
clergy  to  kings,  freethinkers  to  clergy,  kings  to  barons, 
commons  to  king  and  aristocracy.  Almost  all  the 
greatest  men  who  ever  lived  have  formed  part  of  such 
an  opposition.  Wherever  some  such  quarrel  has  not 
been  going  on ;  wherever  it  has  been  terminated  by  the 
complete  victory  of  one  of  the  contending  principles, 
and  no  new  contest  has  taken  the  place  of  the  old, — 
society  has  either  hardened  into  Chinese  stationariness, 
or  fallen  into  dissolution.  A  centre  of  resistance, 
round  which  all  the  moral  and  social  elements  which 
the  ruling  power  views  with  disfavor  may  cluster  them- 
selves, and  behind  whose  bulwarks  they  may  find  shel- 
ter from  the  attempts  of  that  power  to  hunt  them  out 
of  existence,  is  as  necessary  where  the  opinion  of  the 
majority  is  sovereign,  as  where  the  ruling  power  is  a 
hierarchy   or  an  aristocracy.       Where  no   such  point 


406  BENTHAM. 

(Tappui  exists,  there  the  human  race  will  inevitably 
degenerate  ;  and  the  question,  whether  the  United 
States,  for  instance,  will  in  time  sink  into  another  Chma 
(also  a  most  commercial  and  industrious  nation),  re- 
solves itself,  to  us,  into  the  question,  whether  such  a 
centre  of  resistance  will  gradually  evolve  itself  or  not. 

These  things  being  considered,  we  cannot  think  that 
Bentham  made  the  most  useful  employment  which 
might  have  been  made  of  his  great  powers,  when,  not 
content  with  enthroning  the  majority  as  sovereign,  by 
means  of  universal  suffrage,  without  king,  or  house  of 
lords,  he  exhausted  all  the  resources  of  ingenuity  in 
devising  means  for  riveting  the  yoke  of  public  opinion 
closer  and  closer  round  the  necks  of  all  public  func- 
tionaries, and  excluding  every  possibility  of  the  exercise 
of  the  slightest  or  most  temporary  influence  either  by 
a  minority,  or  by  the  functionary's  own  notions  of  right. 
Surely,  when  any  power  has  been  made  the  strongest 
power,  enough  has  been  done  for  it :  care  is  thenceforth 
wanted  rather  to  prevent  that  strongest  power  from 
swallowing  up  all  others.  Wherever  all  the  forces  of 
society  act  in  one  single  direction,  the  just  claims  of  the 
individual  human  being  are  in  extreme  peril.  The 
power  of  the  majority  is  salutary  so  far  as  it  is  used 
defensively,  not  offensively,  —  as  its  exertion  is  tempered 
by  respect  for  the  personality  of  the  individual,  and 
deference  to  superiority  of  cultivated  intelligence.  If 
Bentham  had  employed  himself  in  pointing  out  the 
means  by  which  institutions  fundamentally  democratic 
might  be  best  adapted  to  the  preservation  and  strength- 
enino;  of  those  two  sentiments,  he  would  have  done 
something  more  permanently  valuable,  and  more  worthy 


BENTHAM.  407 

of  his  great  intellect.  Montesquieu,  with  the  lights  of 
the  present  age,  would  have  done  it ;  and  we  are  pos- 
sibly destined  to  receive  tliis  benefit  from  the  Montesquieu 
of  our  own  times,  —  M.  de  TocquevUle. 

Do  we,  then,  consider  Bentham's  political  speculations 
useless?  Far  from  it.  We  consider  them  only  one- 
sided. He  has  brought  out  into  a  strong^  lisht,  has 
cleared  from  a  thousand  confusions  and  misconceptions, 
and  pointed  out  with  admirable  skill  the  best  means 
of  promoting,  one  of  the  ideal  qualities  of  a  perfect 
government, — identity  of  interest  between  the  trustees 
and  the  community  for  whom  they  hold  their  power 
in  trust.  This  quality  is  not  attainable  in  its  ideal 
perfection,  and  must,  moreover,  be  striven  for  with  a 
perpetual  eye  to  all  other  requisites  :  but  those  other 
requisites  must  still  more  be  striven  for,  without  losing 
sight  of  this ;  and,  when  the  slightest  postponement  is 
made  of  it  to  any  other  end,  the  sacrifice,  often  neces- 
sary, is  never  unattended  with  evil.*  Bentham  has 
pointed  out  how  complete  this  sacrifice  is  in  modem 
European  societies ;  how  exclusively,  partial  and  sinis- 
ter interests  are  the  ruling  power  there,  with  only  such 
check  as  is  imposed  by  public  opinion  :  which  being 
thus,  in  the  existing  order  of  tilings,  perpetually  appar- 
ent as  a  source  of  good,  he  was  led  by  natural  partiality 
to  exaoforerate  its  intrinsic  excellence.  This  sinister 
interest  of  rulers,  Bentham  hunted  through  all  its  dis- 
guises, and  especially  through  those  which  hide  it  from 
the  men  themselves  who  are  influenced  by  it.  The 
greatest  service  rendered  by  him  to  the  philosophy  of 

*  [For  further  illustrations  of  this  point,  see  the  Appendix  to  the  present 
volume.] 


408  BENTHAM. 

universal  human  nature,  Is,  perhaps,  Ms  illustration 
of  what  he  terms  "interest-begotten  prejudice,"  —  the 
common  tendency  of  man  to  make  a  duty  and  a  virtue 
of  following  his  self-interest.  The  idea,  it  is  true,  was 
far  from  being  peculiarly  Bentham's  :  the  artifices  by 
which  we  persuade  ourselves  that  we  are  not  yielding 
to  our  selfish  inclinations  when  we  are,  had  attracted 
the  notice  of  all  moralists,  and  had  been  probed  by 
religious  writers  to  a  depth  as  much  below  Bentham's 
as  their  knowledge  of  the  profundities  and  windings 
of  the  human  heart  was  superior  to  his.  But  it  is 
selfish  interest  in  the  form  of  class-interest,  and  the 
class-morality  founded  thereon,  which  Bentham  has 
illustrated, — the  manner  in  which  any  set  of  persons 
who  mix  much  together,  and  have  a  common  interest, 
are  apt  to  make  that  common  interest  their  standard  of 
virtue,  and  the  social  feelings  of  the  members  of  the 
class  are  made  to  play  into  the  hands  of  their  selfish 
ones  ;  whence  the  union,  so  often  exemplified  in  history, 
between  the  most  heroic  personal  disinterestedness  and 
the  most  odious  class-selfishness.  This  was  one  of 
Bentham's  leading  ideas,  and  almost  the  only  one  by 
which  he  contributed  to  the  elucidation  of  history ; 
much  of  which,  except  so  far  as  this  explained  it,  must 
have  been  entirely  Inexplicable  to  him.  The  idea  was 
given  him  by  Helvetius,  whose  book,  ''De  I'Esprit,"  is 
one  continued  and  most  acute  commentary  on  it ;  and 
together  with  the  other  great  idea  of  Helvetius,  tlie 
influence  of  circumstances  on  character,  it  will  make  his 
name  live  by  the  side  of  Rousseau,  when  most  of  the 
other  French  metaphysicians  of  the  eighteenth  century 
will  be  extant  as  such  only  in  literary  history. 


BENTHAJ^I.  409 

In  the  brief  view  which  we  have  been  able  to  give 
of  Bentham's  philosophy,  it  may  surprise  the  reader 
that  we  have  said  so  little  about  the  first  principle  of  it, 
with  which  his  name  is  more  identified  than  with  any 
thing  else,  — the  "principle  of  utility,"  or,  as  he  after- 
wards named  it,  "the  greatest-happiness  principle."  It 
is  a  topic  on  which  much  were  to  be  said,  if  there  wex'e 
room,  or  if  it  were  m  reality  necessary  for  the  just 
estimation  of  Bentham.  On  an  occasion  more  suitable 
for  a  discussion  of  the  metaphysics  of  morality,  or  on 
which  the  elucidations  necessary  to  make  an  opinion 
on  so  abstract  a  subject  intelligible  could  be  conve- 
niently given,  we  should  be  fully  prepared  to  state  what 
we  think  on  this  subject.  At  present,  we  shall  only 
say,  that  while,  under  proper  explanations,  we  entirely 
agree  with  Bentham  in  his  principle,  we  do  not  hold 
with  him  that  all  rio^ht  thinkino^  on  the  details  of  morals 
depends  on  its  express  assertion.  We  think  utility,  or 
happiness,  much  too  complex  and  indefinite  an  end  to 
be  sought,  except  through  the  medium  of  various  sec- 
ondary ends,  concerning  which  there  may  be,  and  often 
is,  agreement  among  persons  who  diflfer  in  their  ulti- 
mate standard ;  and  about  which  there  does,  in  fact, 
prevail  a  much  greater  unanimity  among  thinking  per- 
sons than  might  be  supposed  from  their  diametrical 
divergence  on  the  great  questions  of  moral  metaphys- 
ics. As  mankind  are  much  more  nearly  of  one  nature, 
than  of  one  opinion  about  their  own  nature,  they  are 
more  easily  brought  to  agree  in  their  intermediate  prin- 
ciples—  vera  ilia  et  media  axiomata,  as  Bacon  says — 
than  in  their  first  principles  ;  and  the  attempt  to  make 
the  bearings  of  actions  upon  the  ultimate  end  more 


410  BENTHAM. 

evident  than  they  can  be  made  by  referring  them  to  the 
intermediate  ends,  and  to  estimate  their  value  by  a 
direct  reference  to  human  happiness,  generally  termi- 
nates in  attaching  most  importance,  not  to  those  effects 
which  are  really  the  greatest,  but  to  those  which  can 
most  easily  be  pointed  to,  and  individually  identified. 
Those  who  adopt  utility  as  a  standard  can  seldom  apply 
it  truly,  except  through  the  secondary  principles  :  those 
who  reject  it,  generally  do  no  more  than  erect  those 
secondary  principles  into  first  principles.  It  is  when 
two  or  more  of  the  secondary  principles  conflict,  that 
a  direct  appeal  to  some  first  principle  becomes  neces- 
sary :  and  then  commences  the  practical  importance  of 
the  utilitarian  controversy ;  which  is,  in  other  respects, 
a  question  of  arrangement  and  logical  subordination 
rather  than  of  practice ;  important  principally,  in  a 
purely  scientific  point  of  view,  for  the  sake  of  the 
systematic  unity  and  coherency  of  ethical  philosophy. 
It  is  probable,  however,  that  to  the  principle  of  utility 
we  owe  all  that  Bentham  did  ;  that  it  was  necessary  to 
him  to  find  a  first  principle  wliich  he  could  receive  as 
self-evident,  and  to  which  he  could  attach  all  his  other 
doctrines  as  logical  consequences ;  that  to  him  system- 
atic unity  was  an  indispensable  condition  of  his  con- 
fidence in  his  own  intellect.  And  there  is  something 
further  to  be  remarked.  Whether  happiness  be  or  be 
not  the  end  to  which  morality  should  be  referred,  — 
that  it  be  referred  to  an  end  of  some  sort,  and  not  left 
in  the  dominion  of  vague  feeling,  or  inexplicable  inter- 
nal conviction ;  that  it  be  made  a  matter  of  reason  and 
calculation,  and  not  merely  of  sentiment,  —  is  essential 
to  the  very  idea  of  moral  philosophy ;  is,  in  fact,  what 


BENTHAM.  411 

renders  argument  or  discussion  on  moral  questions 
possible.  That  the  morality  of  actions  depends  on  the 
consequences  which  they  tend  to  produce,  is  the  doc- 
trine of  rational  persons  of  all  schools  :  that  the  good 
or  evil  of  those  consequences  is  measured  solely  by 
pleasure  or  pain,  is  all  of  the  doctrine  of  the  school  of 
utility  which  is  peculiar  to  it. 

In  so  far  as  Bentham's  adoption  of  the  principle  of 
utility  induced  him  to  fix  his  attention  upon  the  con- 
sequences of  actions  as  the  consideration  determining 
their  morality,  so  far  he  was  indisputably  in  the  right 
path ;  though,  to  go  far  in  it  without  wandering,  there 
was  needed  a  greater  knowledge  of  the  formation  of 
character,  and  of  the  consequences  of  actions  upon  the 
agent's  own  frame  of  mind,  than  Bentham  possessed. 
His  want  of  power  to  estimate  this  class  of  conse- 
quences, together  with  his  want  of  the  degree  of  modest 
deference,  which,  from  those  who  have  not  competent 
experience  of  their  own,  is  due  to  the  experience  of 
others  on  that  part  of  the  subject,  greatly  limit  the  value 
of  his  speculations  on  questions  of  practical  ethics. 

He  is  chargeable  also  with  another  error,  which  it 
would  be  improper  to  pass  over,  because  nothing  has 
tended  more  to  place  him  in  opposition  to  the  common 
feelings  of  mankind,  and  to  give  to  his  philosophy  that 
cold,  mechanical,  and  ungenial  air  which  characterizes 
the  popular  idea  of  a  Benthamite.  This  error,  or  rather 
one-sidedness,  belongs  to  him,  not  as  a  utilitarian,  but 
as  a  moralist  by  profession,  and  in  common  with  almost 
all  professed  morahsts,  whether  religious  or  philosophi- 
cal :  it  is  that  of  treating  the  moral  view  of  actions 
and  characters,  which  is  unquestionably  the  first  and 


412  BENTHAM. 

most  important  mode  of  looking  at  them,  as  if  it  were 
the  sole  one ;  whereas  it  is  only  one  of  three,  by  all  of 
which  our  sentiments  towards  the  human  being  may  be, 
ought  to  be,  and,  without  entirely  crushing  our  own 
nature,  cannot  but  be,  materially  influenced.  Every 
human  action  has  three  aspects, — its  moral  aspect, 
or  that  of  its  right  and  wrong ;  its  cesthetic  aspect,  or 
that  of  its  beauty,'  its  sympathetic  aspect,  or  that  of 
its  lovahleness.  The  first  addresses  itself  to  our  rea- 
son and  conscience ;  the  second,  to  our  imagination ; 
the  third,  to  our  human  fellow-feeling.  According  to 
the  first,  we  approve  or  disapprove ;  according  to  the 
second,  we  admire  or  despise ;  according  to  the  third, 
we  love,  pity,  or  dislike.  The  morality  of  an  action 
depends  on  its  foreseeable  consequences :  its  beauty 
and  its  lovableness,  or  the  reverse,  depend  on  the  qual- 
ities which  it  is  evidence  of.  Thus  a  he  is  wrong, 
because  its  effect  is  to  mislead,  and  because  it  tends  to 
destroy  the  confidence  of  man  in  man  :  it  is  also  meaw, 
because  it  is  cowardly ;  because  it  proceeds  from  not 
daring  to  face  the  consequences  of  telling  the  truth ; 
or,  at  best,  is  evidence  of  want  of  that  power  to  com- 
pass our  ends  by  straightforward  means,  which  is 
conceived  as  properly  belonging  to  every  person  not 
deficient  in  energy  or  in  understanding.  The  action 
c^Brutu^  in  sentencing  his  sons  was  right,  because  it 
\v^^€:^utlng  a  law,  essential  to  the  freedom  of  his 
country,  against  persons  of  whose  guilt  there  was  no 
doubt ;  it  was  admirable,  because  it  evinced  a  rare 
degree  of  patriotism,  courage,  and  self-control :  but 
there  was  nothing  lovable  in  it ;  it  affords  either  no 
presumption  in  regard  to  lovable  qualities,   or  a  pre- 


BENTHAJtf.  413 

sumption  of  their  deficiency.  If  one  of  the  sons  had 
engaged  in  the  conspiracy  from  affection  for  the  other, 
his  action  would  have  been  lovable,  though  neither 
moral  nor  admirable.  It  is  not  possible  for  any  sophis- 
try to  confound  these  three  modes  of  viewing  an  action ; 
but  it  is  very  possible  to  adhere  to  one  of  them  exclu- 
sively, and  lose  sight  of  the  rest.  Sentimentality  con- 
sists in  setting  the  last  two  of  the  three  above  the  first : 
the  error  of  moralists  in  general,  and  of  Bentham,  is  to 
sink  the  two  latter  entirely.  JJnis  is  pre-eminently  the 
case  with  Bentham :  he  both  wrote  and  felt  as  if 
the  moral  standard  ought  not  only  to  be  paramount 
(which  it  ought) ,  but  to  be  alone ;  as  if  it  ought  to  be 
the  sole  master  of  all  our  actions,  and  even  of  all  our 
sentiments  ;  as  if  either  to  admire  or  like,  or  despise  or 
dislike,  a  person  for  any  action  which  neither  does  good 
nor  harm,  or  which  does  not  do  a  good  or  a  harm  pro- 
portioned to  the  sentiment  entertained,  were  an  injus- 
tice and  a  prejudice.  He  carried  this  so  far,  that  there 
were  certain  phrases,  which,  being  expressive  of  what 
he  considered  to  be  this  groundless  liking  or  aversion, 
he  could  not  bear  to  hear  pronounced  in  his  presence. 
Among  these  phrases  were  those  oi  good  and  had  taste. 
He  thought  it  an  insolent  piece  of  dogmatism  in  one 
person  to  praise  or  condemn  another  in  a  matter  of 
taste ;  as  if  men's  likings  and  dislikings,  on  things  in 
themselves  indifferent,  were  not  full  of  the  most  impor- 
tant inferences  as  to  every  point  of  their  character ;  as 
if  a  person's  tastes  did  not  show  him  to  be  wise  or  a 
fool,  cultivated  or  ignorant,  gentle  or  rough,  sensitive 
or  callous,  generous  or  sordid,  benevolent  or  selfish, 
conscientious  or  depraved. \ 


414  BEXTHAM. 

Connected  with  the  same  topic  are  Bentham's  peculiar 
opinions  on  poetry.  Much  more  has  been  said  than  there 
is  any  foundation  for  about  his  contempt  for  the  pleas- 
ures of  imagination  and  for  the  fine  arts.  Music  was 
throughout  life  his  favorite  amusement :  painting,  sculp- 
ture, and  the  other  arts  addressed  to  the  eye,  he  was  so 
far  from  holding  in  any  contempt,  that  he  occasionally 
recognizes  them  as  means  employable  for  important 
social  ends  ;  though  his  ignorance  of  the  deeper  springs 
of  human  character  prevented  him  (as  it  prevents  most 
Englishmen)  from  suspecting  how  profoundly  such 
things  enter  into  the  moral  nature  of  man,  and  into 
the  education  both  of  the  individual  and  of  the  race. 
But  towards  poetry  in  the  narrower  sense,  that  which 
employs  the  language  of  words,  he  entertained  no  favor. 
Words,  he  thought,  were  perverted  from  their  proper 
office  when  they  were  employed  in  uttering  any  thing  but 
precise  logical  truth.  He  says,  somewhere  in  his  works, 
that,  "  quantity  of  pleasure  being  equal,  push-pin  is  as 
good  as  poetry ;  "  but  this  is  only  a  paradoxical  way  of 
stating  what  he  would  equally  have  said  of  the  things 
which  he  most  valued  and  admired.  Another  aphorism 
is  attributed  to  him,  which  is  much  more  characteristic 
of  his  view  of  this  subject :  "All  poetry  is  misrepresen- 
tation." Poetry,  he  thought,  consisted  essentially  in 
exaggeration  for  eifect ;  in  proclaiming  some  one  view 
of  a  thing  very  emphatically,  and  suppressing  all  the 
limitations  and  qualifications.  This  trait  of  character 
seems  to  us  a  curious  example  of  what  Mr.  Carlyle 
strikingly  calls  "the  completeness  of  limited  men." 
Here  is  a  philosopher  who  is  happy, within  his  narrow 
boundary  as  no  man  of  indefinite  range  ever  was ;  who 


BENTHAM.  415 

flatters  himself  that  he  is  so  completely  emancipated 
from  the  essential  law  of  poor  human  intellect,  by  which 
it  can  only  see  one  thing  at  a  time  well,  that  he  can 
even  turn  round  upon  the  imperfection,  and  lay  a  solemn 
interdict  upon  it.  Did  Bentham  really  suppose  that  it 
is  in  poetry  only  that  propositions  cannot  be  exactly 
true,  —  cannot  contain  in  themselves  all  the  limitations 
and  qualifications  with  which  they  require  to  be  taken 
when  applied  to  practice  ?  We  have  seen  how  far  his 
own  prose  propositions  are  from  realizing  this  Utopia  ; 
and  even  the  attempt  to  approach  it  would  be  incom- 
patible, not  with  poetry  merely,  but  with  oratory,  and 
popular  writing  of  every  kind.  Bentham's  charge  is 
true  to  the  fullest  extent :  all  writing  which  undertakes 
to  make  men  feel  truths  as  well  as  see  them  does  take 
up  one  point  at  a  time,  — does  seek  to  impress  that,  to 
drive  that  home ;  to  make  it  sink  into  and  color  the 
whole  mind  of  the  reader  or  hearer.  It  is  justified  in 
doing  so,  if  the  portion  of  truth  which  it  thus  enforces 
be  that  which  is  called  for  by  the  occasion.  All  writing 
addressed  to  the  feelings  has  a  natural  tendency  to  exag- 
geration ;  but  Bentham  should  have  remembered,  that 
in  this,  as  in  many  things,  we  must  aim  at  too  much,  to 
be  assured  of  doing  enough. 

From  the  same  principle  in  Bentham  came  the  intri- 
cate and  involved  style,  which  makes  his  later  writings 
books  for  the  student  only,  not  the  general  reader.  It 
was  from  his  perpetually  aiming  at  impracticable  pre- 
cision. Nearly  all  his  earlier  and  many  parts  of  his 
later  writings  are  models,  as  we  have  already  observed, 
of  light,  playful,  and  popular  style  :  a  Benthamiana 
might  be  made  of  passages  worthy  of  Addison  or  Gold- 


416  BENTHAM. 

smith.  But  in  liis  later  years,  and  more  advanced 
studies,  he  fell  into  a  Latin  or  German  structure  of  sen- 
tence, foreign  to  the  genius  of  the  English  language. 
He  could  not  bear,  for  the  sake  of  clearness  and  the 
reader's  ease,  to  say,  as  ordinary  men  are  content  to  do, 
a  little  more  than  the  truth  in  one  sentence,  and  correct 
it  in  the  next.  The  whole  of  the  qualifying  remarks 
which  he  .intended  to  make  he  insisted  upon  embedding 
as  parentheses  in  the  very  middle  of  the  sentence  itself; 
and  thus,  the  sense  being  so  long  suspended,  and  atten- 
tion being  required  to  the  accessory  ideas  before  the 
principal  idea  had  been  properly  seized,  it  became  diffi  - 
cult,  without  some  practice,  to  make  out  the  train  of 
thought.  It  is  fortunate  that  so  many  of  the  most 
important  parts  of  his  writings  are  free  from  this  defect. 
We  regard  it  as  a  reductio  ad  ahsurdum  of  his  objec- 
tion to  poetry.  In  trying  to  write  in  a  manner  against 
which  the  same  objection  should  not  lie,  he  could  stop 
nowhere  short  of  utter  unreadableness ;  and,  after  all, 
attained  no  more  accuracy  than  is  compatible  with 
opinions  as  imperfect  and  one-sided  as  those  of  any  poet 
or,  sentimentalist  breathing.  Judge,  then,  in  what  state 
literature  and  philosophy  would  be,  and  what  chance 
they  would  have  of  influencing  the  multitude,  if  his 
objection  were  allowed,  and  all  styles  of  writing  ban- 
ished which  would  not  stand  his  test. 

We  must  here  close  this  brief  and  imperfect  view 
of  Bentham  and  his  doctrines  ;  in  which  many  parts  of 
the  subject  have  been  entirely  untouched,  and  no  part 
done  justice  to,  but  which  at  least  proceeds  from  an 
intimate  famiharity  with  his  writings,  and  is  nearly  the 
first  attempt  at  an  impartial  estimate  of  his  character  as 


BENTHAM.  417 

a  philosopher,  and  of  the  result  of  his  labors  to  the 
world. 

After  every  abatement  (and  it  has  been  seen  whether 
we  have  made  our  abatements  sparingly) ,  there  remains 
to  Bentham  an  indisputable  place  among  the  great  intel- 
lectual benefactors  of  mankind.  His  writings  will  long 
form  an  indispensable  part  of  the  education  of  the  high- 
est order  of  practical  thinkers  ;  and  the  collected  edition 
of  them  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  every  one  who 
would  either  understand  his  age,  or  take  any  beneficial 
part  in  the  great  business  of  it.* 

*  Since  the  first  publication  of  this  paper,  Lord  Brougham's  brilliant 
series  of  characters  has  been  published,  including  a  sketch  of  Bentham. 
Lord  Brougham's  view  of  Benthara's  characteristics  agrees  in  the  main 
points,  so  far  as  it  goes,  with  the  result  of  our  more  minute  examination ;  but 
there  is  an  imputation  cast  upon  Bentham,  of  a  jealous  and  splenetic  dis- 
position in  private  life,  of  which  we  feel  called  upon  to  give  at  once  a  contra- 
diction and  an  explanation.  It  is  indisi)ensable  to  a  correct  estimate  of  any 
of  Bentham's  dealings  with  the  world,  to  bear  in  mind,  that,  in  every  thing 
except  abstract  speculation,  he  was  to  the  last,  what  we  have  called  him, 
essentially  a  boy.  He  had  the  freshness,  the  simplicity,  the  confidingness, 
the  liveliness  and  activity,  all  the  delightful  qualities  of  boyhood,  and  the 
weaknesses  which  are  the  reverse  side  of  those  qualities,  —  the  undue  impor- 
tance attacl^ed  to  trifles,  the  habitual  mismeasurement  of  the  practical  bear- 
ing and  value  of  things,  the  readiness  to  be  either  delighted  or  offended  on 
inadequate  cause.  These  were  the  real  sources  of  what  was  unreasonable  in 
some  of  his  attacks  on  individuals,  and  in  particular  on  Lord  Brougham  on 
the  subject  of  his  Law  Reforms:  they  were  no  more  the  effect  of  envy  or 
malice,  or  any  really  unamiable  quality,  than  the  freaks  of  a  pettish  child, 
and  are  scarcely  a  fitter  subject  of  censure  or  criticism. 


27 


418 


APPENDIX.* 


From  the  principle  of  the  necessity  of  identifying  the 
interest  of  the  government  with  that  of  the  people,  most 
of  the  practical  maxims  of  a  representative  government 
are  corollaries.  All  popular  institutions  are  means 
towards  rendering  the  identity  of  interest  more  com- 
plete. "VYe  say,  more  complete,  because  (and  this  it  is 
important  to  remark)  perfectly  complete  it  can  never 
be.  An  approximation  is  all  that  is,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  possible.  By  pushing  to  its  utmost  extent  the 
accountability  of  governments  to  the  people,  you  indeed 
take  away  from  them  the  power  of  prosecuting  their 
own  interests  at  the  expense  of  the  people  by  force ; 
but  you  leave  to  them  the  whole  range  and  compass  of 
fraud.  An  attorney  is  accountable  to  his  client,  and 
reijiovable  at  his  client's  pleasure ;  but  we  should 
scarcely  say  that  his  interest  is  identical  with  that  of  his 
client.  When  the  accountability  is  perfect,  the  interest 
of  rulers  approximates  more  and  more  to  identity  with 
that  of  the  people  in  proportion  as  the  people  are  more 
enlightened.  The  identity  Avould  be  perfect,  only  if  the 
people  were  so  wise,  that  it  should  no  longer  be  practi- 
cable to  employ  deceit  as  an  instrument  of  goverment : 
a  point  of  advancement  only  one  stage  below  that  at 
which  they  could  do  without  government  altogether  ;  at 

*  London  Eeview,  July  and  October,  1835. 


APPENDIX.  419 

least,  without  force,  and  penal  sanctions,  not  (of  course) 
without  guidance  and  organized  co-operation. 

Identification  of  interest  between  the  rulers  and  the 
ruled  being  therefore,  in  a  literal  sense,  impossible  to 
be  realized,  ought  not  to  be  spoken  of  as  a  condition 
which  a  government  must  absolutely  fulfil ;  but  as  an 
end  to  be  incessantly  aimed  at,  and  approximated  to  as 
nearly  as  circumstances  render  possible,  and  as  is  com- 
patible with  the  regard  due  to  other  ends.  For  this 
identity  of  interest,  even  if  it  were  wholly  attainable, 
not  being  the  sole  requisite  of  good  government,  expe- 
diency may  require  that  we  should  sacrifice  some  portion 
of  it,  or  (to  speak  more  precisely)  content  ourselves 
with  a  somewhat  less  approximation  to  it  than  might 
possibly  be  attainable,  for  the  sake  of  some  other 
end. 

The  only  end,  liable  occasionally  to  conflict  with  that 
which  we  have  been  insisting  on,  and  at  all  comparable 
to  it  in  importance,  — the  only  other  condition  essential 
to  good  government,  —  is  this  :  That  it  be  government 
by  a  select  body,  not  by  the  public  collectively ;  that 
political  questions  be  not  decided  by  an  appeal,  either 
direct  or  indirect,  to  the  judgment  or  will  of  an  unin- 
structed  mass,  whether  of  gentlemen  or  of  clowns,  but 
by  the  deliberately  formed  opinions  of  a  comparatively 
few,  specially  educated  for  the  task.  This  is  an  element 
of  good  government,  which  has  existed,  in  a  greater  or 
less  degree,  in  some  aristocracies,  though  unhappily  not 
in  our  own  ;  and  has  been  the  cause  of  whatever  repu- 
tation for  prudent  and  skilful  administration  those  gov- 
ernments have  enjoyed.  It  has  seldom  been  found  in 
any  aristocracies  but  those  which  were  avowedly  such. 


420  APPENDIX. 

Aristocracies  in  the  guise  of  monarchies  (such  as  those 
of  England  and  France)  have  very  generally  been  aris- 
tocracies of  idlers ;  while  the  others  (such  as  Rome, 
Venice,  and  Holland)  might  partially  be  considered  as 
aristocracies  of  experienced  and  laborious  men.  Of  all 
modern  governments,  however,  the  one  by  which  this 
excellence  is  possessed  in  the  most  eminent  degree  is 
the  government  of  Prussia,  —  a  most  powerfully  and 
strongly  organized  aristocracy  of  the  most  highly  edu- 
cated men  in  the  kingdom.  The  British  Government  in 
India  partakes  (with  considerable  modifications)  of  the 
same  character. 

When  this  principle  has  been  combined  with  other 
fortunate  circumstances,  and  particularly  (as  in  Prus- 
sia) with  circumstances  rendering  the  popularity  of  the 
government  almost  a  necessary  condition  of  its  security, 
a  very  considerable  degree  of  good  government  has  oc- 
casionally been  produced,  without  any  express  account- 
ability to  the  people.  Such  fortunate  circumstances, 
however,  are  seldom  to  be  reckoned  upon.  But,  though 
the  principle  of  government  by  persons  specially  brought 
up  to  it  will  not  suffice  to  produce  good  government, 
good  government  cannot  be  had  without  it :  and  the 
grand  difficulty  in  politics  wUl  for  a  long  time  be,  how 
best  to  conciliate  the  two  great  elements  on  which  good 
government  depends  ;  to  combine  the  greatest  amount 
of  the  advantage  derived  from  the  independent  judg- 
ment of  a  specially  instructed  few  with  the  greatest 
degree  of  the  security  for  rectitude  of  purpose  derived 
from  rendering  those  few  responsible  to  the  many. 

What  is  necessary,  however,  to  make  the  two  ends 
perfectly  reconcilable,  is  a  smaller  matter  than  might 


APPENDIX.  421 

at  first  sight  be  supposed.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the 
many  should  themselves  be  perfectly  wise  :  it  is  suffi- 
cient if  they  be  duly  sensible  of  the  value  of  superior 
wisdom.  It  is  sufficient  if  they  be  aware  that  the 
majority  of  political  questions  turn  upon  considerations 
of  which  they,  and  all  persons  not  trained  for  the  pur- 
pose, must  necessarily  be  very  imperfect  judges ;  and 
that  their  judgment  must  in  general  be  exercised  rather 
upon  the  characters  and  talents  of  the  persons  whom 
they  appoint  to  decide  these  questions  for  them,  than 
upon  the  questions  themselves.  They  would  then 
select  as  their  representatives  those  whom  the  general 
voice  of  the  instructed  pointed  out  as  the  most  in- 
structed ;  and  would  retain  them  so  long  as  no  symp- 
tom was  manifested  in  their  conduct  of  being  under  the 
influence  of  interests  or  of  feelings  at  variance  with 
the  public  welfare.  This  implies  no  greater  wisdom  in 
the  people  than  the  very  ordinary  wisdom  of  knowing 
Avhat  things  they  are  and  are  not  sufficient  judges  of. 
If  the  bulk  of  any  nation  possess  a  fair  share  of  this 
wisdom,  the  argument  for  universal  suffi-age,  so  far  as 
respects  that  people,  is  irresistible ;  for  the  experience 
of  ages,  and  especially  of  all  great  national  emergen- 
cies, bears  out  the  assertion,  that,  whenever  the 
multitude  are  really  alive  to  the  necessity  of  superior 
intellect,  they  rarely  fail  to  distinguish  those  who 
possess  it. 

•  ••••• 

The  Idea  of  a  rational  democracy  is,  not  that  the 
people  themselves  govern,  but  that  they  have  security 
for  good  government.  This  security  they  cannot  have 
by  any  other  means  than    by  retaining   in   their   own 


422  APPENDIX. 

hands  the  ultimate  control.  If  they  renounce  this,  they 
give  themselves  up  to  tyranny.  A  governing  class  not 
accountable  to  the  people,  are  sure,  in  the  main,  to 
sacrifice  the  people  to  the  pursuit  of  separate  interests 
and  inclinations  of  their  own.  Even  their  feelings  of 
morality,  even  their  ideas  of  excellence,  have  reference, 
not  to  the  good  of  the  people,  but  to  their  own  good : 
their  very  virtues  are  class- virtues ;  their  noblest  acts 
of  patriotism  and  self-devotion  are  but  the  sacrifice  of 
their  private  interests  to  the  interests  of  their  class. 
The  heroic  public  virtue  of  a  Leonidas  was  quite  com- 
patible with  the  existence  of  Helots.  In  no  govern- 
ment will  the  interests  of  the  people  be  the  object, 
except  where  the  people  are  able  to  dismiss  their  rulers 
as  soon  as  the  devotion  of  those  rulers  to  the  interests 
of  the  people  becomes  questionable.  But  this  is  the 
only  fit  use  to  be  made  of  popular  power.  Provided 
good  intentions  can  be  secured,  the  best  government 
(need  it  be  said?)  must  be  the  government  of  the 
wisest ;  and  these  must  always  be  a  few.  The  people 
ought  to  be  the  masters ;  but  they  are  masters  who 
must  employ  servants  more  skilful  than  themselves  : 
like  a  ministry  when  they  employ  a  military  command- 
er, or  the  military  commander  when  he  employs  an 
army  surgeon.  When  the  minister  ceases  to  confide  in 
the  commander,  he  dismisses  him,  and  appoints  another  ; 
but  he  does  not  send  him  instructions  when  and  where 
to  fight.  He  holds  him  responsible  only  for  intentions 
and  for  results.  The  people  must  do  the  same.  This 
does  not  render  the  control  of  the  people  nugatory. 
The  control  of  a  government  over  the  commander  of  an 
army  is  not  nugatory.     A  man's  control  over  his  phy- 


APPEXDIX.  423 

sician  is  not  nugatory,  though  he  does  not  direct  his 
physician  what  medicine  to  administer. 

But  in  government,  as  in  every  thing  else,  the  dan- 
ger is,  lest  those,  who  cati  do  whatever  they  wiU,  may 
will  to  do  more  than  is  for  their  ultimate  interest. 
The  interest  of  the  people  is  to  choose  for  their  rulers 
the  most  instructed  and  the  ablest  persons  who  can  be 
found ;  and,  having  done  so,  to  allow  them  to  exercise 
their  knowledge  and  ability  for  the  good  of  the  people, 
under  the  check  of  the  freest  discussion  and  the  most 
unreserved  censure,  but  with  the  least  possible  direct 
interference  of  their  constituents,  —  as  long  as  it  is  the 
good  of  the  people,  and  not  some  private  end,  that 
they  are  aiming  at.  A  democracy  thus  administered 
would  unite  all  the  good  qualities  ever  possessed  by  any 
government.  Not  only  would  its  ends  be  good,  but  its 
means  would  be  as  well  chosen  as  the  wisdom  of  the 
age  would  allow ;  and  the  omnipotence  of  the  majority 
would  be  exercised  through  the  agency  and  according 
to  the  judgment  of  an  enlightened  minority,  accounta- 
ble to  the  majority  in  the  last  resort. 

But  it  is  not  possible  that  the  constitution  of  the 
democracy  itself  should  provide  adequate  security  for 
its  being  understood  and  administered  in  this  spirit. 
Hiis  rests  with  the  good  sense  of  the  people  themselves. 
If  the  people  can  remove  their  rulers  for  one  thing, 
they  can  for  another.  That  ultimate  control,  without 
which  they  cannot  have  security  for  good  government, 
may,  if  they  please,  be  made  the  means  of  themselves 
interfering  in  the  government,  and  making  their  legis- 
lators mere  delegates  for  carrying  into  execution  the 
preconceived  judgment  of  the  majority.     If  the  people 


424  APPENDIX. 

do  this,  they  mistake  their  interest ;  and  such  a  govern- 
ment, though  better  than  most  aristocracies,  is  not  the 
kind  of  democracy  which  wise  men  desire. 

Some  persons,  and  persons,  too,  whose  desire  for 
enlightened  government  cannot  be  questioned,  do  not 
take  so  serious  •  a  view  of  this  perversion  of  the  true 
idea  of  an  enlightened  democracy.  They  say,  it  is 
well  that  the  many  should  evoke  all  political  questions 
to  their  own  tribunal,  and  decide  them  according  to 
their  own  judgment,  because  then  philosophers  will  be 
compelled  to  enlighten  the  multitude,  and  render  them 
capable  of  appreciating  their  more  profound  views. 
No  one  can  attach  greater  value  than  we  do  to  this 
consequence  of  popular  government,  so  far  as  we  be- 
lieve it  capable  of  being  realized :  and  the  argument 
would  be  irresistible,  if,  in  order  to  instruct  the  people, 
all  that  is  requisite  were  to  will  it ;  if  it  were  only  the 
discovery  of  political  truths  which  required  study  and 
wisdom,  and  the  evidences  of  them,  when  discovered, 
could  be  made  apparent  at  once  to  any  person  of  com- 
mon sense,  as  well  educated  as  every  individual  in  the 
community  might  and  ought  to  be.  But  the  fact  is  not 
so.  Many  of  the  truths  of  politics  (in  political  econo- 
my, for  instance)  are  the  result  of  a  concatenation  of 
propositions,  the  very  first  steps  of  which  no  one,  who 
has  not  gone  through  a  course  of  study,  is  prepared  to 
concede :  there  are  others,  to  have  a  complete  percep- 
tion of  which  requires  much  meditation  and  experience 
of  human  nature.  How  will  philosophers  bring  these 
home  to  the  perceptions  of  the  multitude?  Can  they 
enable  common  sense  to  judge  of  science,  or  inexperi- 
ence of  experience?     Every  one,  who  has  even  crossed 


APPENDIX.  425 

the  threshold  of  political  philosophy,  knows,  that,  on 
many  of  its  questions,  the  false  view  is  greatly  the  most 
plausible  :  and  a  large  portion  of  its  truths  are,  and 
must  always  remain,  to  all  but  those  who  have  specially 
studied  them,  paradoxes  ;  as  contrary,  in  appearance,  to 
common  sense,  as  the  proposition  that  the  earth  moves 
round  the  sun.  The  multitude  will  never  believe  those 
truths,  until  tendered  to  them  from  an  authority  in 
which  they  have  as  unlimited  confidence  as  they  have 
in  the  unanimous  voice  of  astronomers  on  a  question  of 
astronomy.  That  they  should  have  no  such  confidence 
at  present  is  no  discredit  to  them ;  for  where  are  the 
persons  who  are  entitled  to  it  ?  But  we  are  well  satis- 
fied that  it  will  be  given,  as  soon  as  knowledge  shall 
have  made  sufficient  progress  among  the  instructed 
classes  themselves  to  produce  sometliing  like  a  general 
agreement  in  their  opinions  on  the  leading  points  of 
moral  and  political  doctrine.  Even  now,  on  those 
points  on  which  the  instructed  classes  are  agreed,  the 
unin struct ed  have  generally  adopted  their  opinions. 


END    OF   VOL.   1. 


Boston :  Printed  by  John  Wilson  and  Son. 


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